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1177/016224302236177 Science, Technology, & Human Values Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment

Patriarchal Machines and
Masculine Embodiment
Ulf Mellstrm
Linkping University
Hegemonic masculinity is a concept that has been of central concern in gender research
on different masculinities. However, with the exception of the pioneering work of
Wajcman, it has not been widely discussed in relation to studies of science and technol-
ogy. In this article, which mainly draws on anthropological fieldwork among car and
motor mechanics in Penang, Malaysia, a certain form of hegemonic masculinity, based
on an intimate embodied interaction with machines, is being discussed. Such a masculin-
ity is furthermore founded on an anthropomorphization of the man-machine relationship
in which the machines are transformed into subjects in what might be termed a masculine
technical sociability. In such a sociability, machines are understood as a means of a
performative and embodied communication enabling masculine homosocial bonding
linkages.
Prologue
Early morningTuesday, 19 November 1997
Standing in a queue at Pulau Pinangs International Airport, Malaysia,
patiently waiting for the immigration officers to scrutinize my Swedish pass-
port. Around me are businessmen, mostly fromSingapore, restlessly waiting
their turn. Ive never heard so many mobile phoneshere they call themhand
phonesring out at once. Seemingly every man and a few women in the
arrival lounge make or answer calls, talking loud and clear, and in a variety of
460
AUTHORS NOTE: I would like to thank everyone in the research program Technology, Prac-
tice, Identity at the Department of Technology and Social Change, Linkping University, Swe-
den, for taking the time to read and comment on earlier versions of this article. I would also like to
thank the anonymous reviewers for encouraging comments and a thorough job of examining the
article. Verbal presentations were made at the conferences Sociality/Materiality: The Status of
the Object in Social Science, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK, from 9-11 September 1999 and
4S/EASST Conference 2000, Worlds in Transition: Technoscience, Citizenship and Culture in
the 21st Century, University of Vienna, Austria, from 27-30 September 2000. The research for
this article was supported by the Swedish Research Council (FRN).
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 27 No. 4, Autumn 2002 460-478
DOI: 10.1177/016224302236177
2002 Sage Publications
languages; English, of course, Bahasa Malaysia, Hokkien, Mandarin, Tamil,
as well as some other languages I cant quite recognize.
Early eveningSaturday, 9 May 1998
Sitting on my heels and watching the work of the Penang-born Chinese
mechanic Tan Beng Teong and his brother Tan Beng Hooi. They are crawling
beneath a large Volvo truck, struggling to fit into place a driveshaft and being
assisted by their apprentice Boi and their uncle Tan Leong Soon. Despite it
being almost 9:00 in the evening, the temperature remains close to 40C.
Although I only assist with a fewtools, I sweat constantly. With the help of a
jack and plenty of muscular exertion, the driveshaft is fitted to the truck. The
Tan brothers slowly emerge from the vehicle that has literally consumed
them for the preceding hour. A certain merriness catches around combined
with a feeling of relief due to the fact that a six-day working week is over. At
around 9:30 P.M., we prepare to go for dinner. We jump into the cars, and ten
minutes later, we are seated at a friends outdoor seafood restaurant in a
nearby neighbourhood in the Chinese community of Jelutong.
Introduction
Holding that technology in general is a symbol of masculinity, does not mean
that all men behave in a similar way and are equally attached to technology.
M. Lie, 1996, 57
What the Norwegian anthropologist of technology Merete Lie expresses
here seems quite obvious. But if anyone had told meeither when I was lin-
ing up before the immigration desk at Pulau Pinangs International Airport in
November 1997 or just about a half year later, in the workshop of the Tan
brothersthat all men are equally attached to technology, I might have been
close to believing that particular person in that particular situation. Neverthe-
less, if we proclaimthat technology in general more often symbolizes mascu-
linity than it symbolizes femininity, I think few laypeople and few scholars
would raise any objections. Among feminist STS scholars such as Cynthia
Cockburn (1983, 1985) and Judy Wajcman (1991), it is not only a question of
raising an eventual objection, it is rather that technology is a paradigmatic
masculine ideology in which women are represented as non-technological,
as incompatible with machinery (Cockburn 1985, 197).
1
However, as Lie pointed out, it does not mean that all men behave as if they
are all equally technologically competent and skilled but rather, it means
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 461
that technology is connected to the typical, and stereotypical image of mas-
culinity (Lie 1996, 56-57). In other words, technology can be seen as
belonging to a popular image of masculinity, or rather to various forms of
masculinity. This is true within the world of technology as well as in other
societal spheres. For instance, Wajcman (1991) roughly outlines two domi-
nant forms of masculinity in the world of technology. One form is based on
physical toughness and mechanical skills, the other is based on a professional
calculative rationality of the technical specialist. Both these forms of mascu-
linity are connected to the mastering of, and the control over, technology and
nature. Other common ground for both these forms is that they are expressive
and constitutive forms of masculinity. Both forms conceptualize how men
construct identity in relation to machines and technology.
In connection with this and following a most useful line of thought origi-
nating in Sandra Hardings (1986) now-classic conceptual triad of structure,
symbolism, and identity in the gender-technology relation, the feminist
scholar Wendy Faulkner (2001) distinguished between gender in technology
and gender of technology. In the first case, gender relations are both embod-
ied in and constructed or reinforced by artifacts to yield a very material form
of the mutual shaping of gender and technology (p. 6). In the second case,
the gendering of artifacts is more by association than by material embodi-
ment (p. 6). As Faulkner also demonstrated in her work, various forms of
gendering can be identified between the gendering in and the gendering of
technology. Accordingly, the symbolic relationship between technology and
masculinity is, as one can imagine, a relationship filled with a number of con-
notations and varying forms for gendering in and gendering of technology as
masculine.
Within feminist technology studies in general, the structural aspects of the
gender-technology relation seem to be explored much more than the sym-
bolic aspects. As the sociologist of technology, Anne-Jorunn Berg (1996, 54)
put it, Looking at the field of feminist technology studies . . . it is the struc-
tural level or the sexual division of work that have been paid most attention.
Among other things, this implies that another triadnamely, symbolism,
identity, and embodimentis an underdeveloped dimension of the gender-
technology relation, one that demands further investigation. In this article,
which, as been pointed out earlier, draws on ethnographic work among tech-
nical professionals such as car and motor mechanics, variations of this triadic
relationship will be examined by focusing on the patriarchal privileges and
masculine homosocial bonds that are being mediated and communicated
through the interaction of men and machines, particularly motorbikes and
cars.
2
This also goes hand in hand with what Connell (1995) defined as hege-
monic masculinity: the configuration of gender practice which embodies
462 Science, Technology, & Human Values
the currently accepted answer to the problemof the legitimacy of patriarchy
(p. 77). Thus, the values called into play in the ideology of a hegemonic mas-
culinity will vary fromtime to time, but in one way or another, it often seems
to involve a certain bonding between men and machines grounded in the
embodiment of technology.
The Embodiment of a Mechanic
Anatomy may dispose, but culture will propose.
K. Hastrup, 1995, 5
The occupational practices, habits, and routines of the mechanics of
Penang are formed through the interplay between what might be called dis-
position and proposition. In such a process of everyday socialization and
enculturation, propositions become what Hastrup (1995, 5) called learned
dispositions. These learning processes can of course differ enormously
depending on social context and cultural history. Nevertheless, the routines
of the body are the foundation on which observations of everyday life in dif-
ferent ethnographic contexts are grounded.
In anthropological work, often enough, the body has been out of sight, not
to say it has been absent. This is generally true, I would say, for the anthropo-
logical subject and the anthropologist. But, as Hastrup (1995, 7) and many
others (cf. Merleau-Ponty 1994; Bourdieu 1977) reminded us, there cannot
be knowledge without a knower, culture cannot be practised with the mind
alone. Consequently, cultures are not only linguistic communities, they are
also corporate fields of action, which include the bodily presence of the eth-
nographer. However, it is often difficult to convey the true significance of
moving and acting bodies in the field through the textual practice of our aca-
demic trade. Nevertheless, and it may go without saying, that vital aspects of
culture must be performed for them to be present, and not least presented.
The collective remembering of a society is inevitably connected to ritual
practice, festivals, and other self-celebrations that in one way or another
include the collective movement of bodies. On a day-to-day level, individu-
als, groups, and communities also remember and share culture through indi-
vidual and collective corporate movement. It is incorporated into the daily
movements and actions of people and as such, it is situated within the cultural
constraints of local worlds. Through such embodied experience, people share
essential features of common cultural knowledge without necessarily verbal-
izing it.
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 463
This is certainly true in the occupational practices of different technologi-
cal professions. Here, we can observe how the body, in the singular and the
plural, is a capital and a site of transcendence. Following Hastrup (1995, 5) on
this point, one might say the body is a potentiality that is elaborated and
developed in social relations. Bodily action and bodily learning are gener-
ally extremely important in the professions of mechanics and engineers
professions in which the body physically enacts change on artefacts. The
enculturation of the body, in both occupations, is to be seen as a never-ending
process of continuous incorporation of bodily and cognitive knowledge.
Knowledgeability for the mechanics of Penang involves seeing, listening,
muscular exertion, touching, calculating, and not least competently practis-
ing a locally situated cultural competence of other peoples lives and life situ-
ations in the community.
For a young mechanic in the Chinese community of Jelutong, such a pro-
cess of learning or embodiment of knowledge begins early on in life. It is, in a
way, a classical master-apprentice relationship that is embedded and
enmeshed within the overwhelmingly patriarchal and family-centered Chi-
nese communities of Penang.
3
Tan Beng Teong (here after Ah Teong)
recalled howhe, at the age of seven, began working in his fathers workshop,
which was situated at the front of the family house. In the family tradition, as
the oldest brothers, Ah Teong and his two-year older brother Tan Beng Hooi
(here after Hooi) were the onesin their family of four brothers and one sis-
terwho were supposed to continue to run the family business.
Learning the trade began with simple and menial tasks such as cleaning
tools. As Ah Teong laughingly explained, at first it was his fathers intention
to convey a feeling of grease and dirt. Then, with a more serious tone, Ah
Teong continued to explain that it was also a case of getting to knowthe tools
with your hands and fingers. His father insisted on this because in practicing
the trade of a mechanic, you have to have the tools as your companions. Ah
Teong emphasized how tools are inextricably connected to his repertoire of
mechanical skills and continued, They are an extension of me. My hands
and my tools are one and the same when I work. His father seldomexplicitly
told him how to perform the different tasks in the workshop. Watch, learn,
and try, was always the implicit message (i.e., a classic learn-by-doing situa-
tion), through practical interaction with the materials performed within a
step-by-step curve of learning. The occupational logic, as well as the cultural
logic, initially develops from simple tasks that demand minimal skill but
much patience. Then the apprentice moves on to increasingly complex tasks
that require a combination of occupational skills and tenacity. During this
phase of learning, the apprentice must endure tediumand performtasks such
as the washing of tools and undoing tyre bolts and the like. It is a time of
464 Science, Technology, & Human Values
proving that one can stand the boredomof certain tasks and the mild indignity
of continually being bossed around.
Later on in the occupational career, it is considered an informal merit if the
apprentice has endured this period with a certain integrity and sense of
humour. To be able to cope with the tedium while tolerating the rough social
climate consisting of almost constant asymmetrical joking relationships (cf.
Radcliffe-Brown 1952) is thus something that merits you as a person with a
role and position both on an occupational level and within the local commu-
nity. This is not least true when it comes to any informal measurement of your
masculine standards. Being able to tell stories and jokes is generally some-
thing that is highly regarded, and the word of such talent is easily spread in the
tightly knit local community.
Learning by observation and then by practice, while enduring the bore-
domof more menial taskson both a social and a more strictly occupational
levelare some of the basic components of the mechanics learning process.
Another important part of the learning process is listening. Ah Teong and
Hooi claimed that in 80 percent of all cases, they can diagnose a faulty engine
purely by listening. The brothers recalled howtheir father would stop what he
was doing and walk around the car with the engine running to listen to the
sound of the engine from different angles. He usually signaled to Ah Teong
and Hooi to listen carefully and occasionally, he would ask their opinion.
Both Ah Teong and Hooi were eager to reply, and afterward, their father
repeated, Compression, always listen to the compression. Over a period of
time, their experience of acoustic engine diagnosis has accumulated. Ah
Teong often said, You have to find the shortcuts. By a good ear, you can
always find the shortcuts. Finding shortcuts is the most important! Lis-
tening, combined with touching the engine, is the way to find the shortcuts.
Ah Teong claimed to be able to diagnose 95 percent of all engines by listening
and touching. Whatever the correct figures may be, this is not something
unique for Ah Teong but is expressed among a number of mechanics in
Penang, in Sweden, and in other parts of the world (cf. Harper 1987).
What this, of course, illustrates is the importance of bodily knowledge in
the professional life of a mechanic. It is a knowledge of the body that is diffi-
cult to convey in written words. It is a matter of using both body and mind as
an efficient instrument or tool to find a smooth working rhythm. The work
practices of Ah Teong and other skilled mechanics draw on an inventory of
detailed and intimate knowledge of materials, the interpretation of sounds,
and subtle physical sensations. It is, as Harper (1987, 118) pointed out, a kin-
esthetic sense that operates. This kinesthetic sense literally means to encoun-
ter and acquaint oneself with the machine, to work with the materials rather
than against them, and to communicate with the materials and read their
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 465
messages. Such a knowledge is hard, not to say impossible, to reach by intel-
lectual means alone. As Harper (1987, 133) put it, Gaining the kinesthetic
sense, however, reduces the gap between the subjectthe workerand the
objectthe work. Robert Pirsig went as far as to say that there is no subject-
object dualismin the work of a truly skilled mechanic (1974, 269), it is com-
mon sense. And indeed, to Ah Teong and many other mechanics I have met in
my work, this seems to be the case. They rarely talk about what they do with
their hands and their body. It is a bodily intelligence, a kind of savoir-faire
(Berner 1999) that is not to be equated with tacit knowledge since a constitu-
tive part of the knowledge requires it to be performed and enacted. The con-
cept of tacit knowledge seems to imply a knowledge that is not being heard or
formulated through social interaction. Therefore, I think it is more appropri-
ate to use concepts that emphasize the action and interaction between knowl-
edgeable and culturally competent actors within local contextsthis is to
say, concepts that emphasize that a cultural perspective on learning always
implies an awareness of both the cultural and social situation and the bodily
interactive dimension of seeing, listening, smelling, and touching (i.e.,
embodied learning) (cf. Chaiklin and Lave 1993).
Performative Dexterity
Doing and knowing are inventive in another sense: They are open-ended pro-
cesses of improvisation with the social, material, and the experiential resources
at hand.
J. Lave, 1993, 13
Mechanics naturally draw on their own (normally) rich experience, and
the experience of others, both past and present. But the work at hand also
emerges in the work process itself. They cannot necessarily correctly predict
the outcome of an engine overhaul or the changing of an engine part. There
are always multitudes of permutations, and therefore also degrees of impro-
visation and even experimentation, which go beyond the immediate situation
and that generate new understanding and knowledge. In this cumulative and
ever evolving learning process of craftsmanship, practice in a performative
sense is of vital importance. In Performance Theory (George 1996, 19), we
learn that a performance is seen as a singular and unrepeatable event, charac-
terized by improvisation. Even though this is not wholly applicable to the
technical profession of a motor mechanic, it still points to a similarity in that
466 Science, Technology, & Human Values
it includes improvisation as something fundamental to learning and improv-
ing the craft.
Such improvisation is used among many of the older mechanics in
Penang, where modifying and repairingas opposed to simply replacing old
parts for new onesare part of everyday work practices. For many of Ah
Teongs customers, who consist mainly of poor taxi drivers, buying new
spare parts is often financially out of the question. This situation is different
for Ah Chuan, a mechanic in his mid-forties who mostly has university
employees as his customers. Nevertheless, both he and Ah Teong vision the
work of the real mechanics as a dying trade, in which the parts
exchangers will replace the real mechanics, and the profession will be
inhabited by men who just replace instead of repair and by men who do not
have the touch as they say, or the touch of a man.
Having the touch can be expressed in different ways, but it surely has a
performative qualitya dexterity and quality that is a proof of, and an inte-
gral aspect of, ones occupational skill. Such a dexterity is to be seen, per-
formed, and measured in the local context. While some of these qualities are
grounded locally, others, such as good mechanical workmanship can of
course be judged outside the community, where good workmanship can be
measured. The performative qualities of the workmanship are situated in the
work process. It is a matter of using and measuring the appropriate force of a
blow or a twist, it is a matter of reading the pressure of the material, and so
forth. Robert Pirsig (1974, 323) came close to describing this performative
quality:
Theres whats called mechanics feel, which is very obvious to those who
know what it is, but hard to describe to those who dont; and when you see
someone working on a machine who doesnt have it, you tend to suffer with the
machine. The mechanics feel comes from a deep inner kinesthetic feeling for
the elasticity of materials. (P. 323)
In the case of the mechanics of Penang, this is evident in a sort of informal
ranking among the islands mechanics, and which, to some extent, is influ-
enced by customers. However, the customers cannot overviewthe trade to the
same degree as the mechanics, and customers also tend to have slightly dif-
ferent criteria for judging the quality of the work. Among the mechanics,
there are certain super mechanics who are called on whenever things are
getting out of hand. Some have it, others dont, as Ah Teong said, proud,
knowing that he belongs to the group of super mechanics in Penang. To
qualify as a mechanic of such a standard, you must possess this performative
qualitythe touch. And, in all, there are not more than ten on the whole
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 467
island of Penang with its 1.5 million people. There is an almost magical
endowment attributed to those receiving the honourary title of super. How-
ever, this is not hard to understand in a community in which spiritual matters
concerning fate, faith, and fortune are deep and significant aspects of daily
life. In the pragmatic, but nonetheless serious, attitude toward spiritual mat-
ters of the Chinese communities in Penang, this becomes evident in the way
that former craftsmen, in different trades many generations ago, became dei-
ties or saints of their respective communities and beyond. These deities are
still widely worshipped among the older communities of Penang, Jelutong
being one. Perhaps due to the relatively recent history of the profession, such
deifying has not yet developed among the mechanics. But it is practiced
among shipbuilders and smiths, for instance. If it eventually does develop
among the mechanics in Penang, it will surely be one of the super mechanics
who will receive such a divine statusa man with the touch, a man who can
skillfully demonstrate his performative dexterity anda performative quality.
Bodily Inscriptions
Another angle of the performative elements of the mechanics profession
is howthe body itself signifies manhood and howit is being used as a proof of
manhood. The body is here to be viewed as a form of inscriptional device
(Latour 1986), representing skill, experience, and not least, masculine tenac-
ity and hard work.
In general terms, the view taken on the body here is that it is marked by
social discourse and different life events (cf. Foucalt 1978; Bourdieu 1977;
Butler 1993), where discourse and events are inscribed into the habitus of
individuals and groups. In the work of Bourdieu (1977), the concept of
habitus has come to denote how individuals and groups, through practice,
embody social discourses and transform them into possibilities and con-
straints in the repertoire of their lives. I believe that the benefit of Bourdieus
concept of habitus is that it focuses on practice and howhabitus is constituted
in practice. Thus, habitus is always oriented toward practical functions. Fur-
thermore, practice is to be seen as a point of intersection between socially dis-
cursive structures and the perception of individuals. In the work of Butler
(1993), performativity focuses on gendered acts. These acts became self-
evident and embodied through repetition and, I would add, improvisation,
leaving room for renewal and transformations, both social and cultural.
Following the lines of thought of Butler and Bourdieu on these points, the
performative dexterity and professional bodily actions of the mechanics of
468 Science, Technology, & Human Values
Penang in combination with the body used as an inscriptional device could
thus be seen as acts based on a habitus that enhances a practice that is pro-
foundly gendered and codified as masculine. In other words, first, the kines-
thetic sense of ones own body in performing competition with other bodies is
used as a sign of manhood. Second, and closely related, the body is used as an
inscriptional device of manhood. It is to this second aspect of manhood that I
now turn.
During the fieldwork in Penang, older mechanics often came to retell their
first experiences as apprentices. They spoke at length about the hardships of
being an apprentice in the fifties and sixties. The main principles of the learn-
ing process were to observe, listen, and learn by trial and error. Their work
was most often surveyed by austere and punitive foremen, who rarely hesi-
tated in physically punishing their apprentices. When discussing the hard
work of previous generations, there were a number of senior mechanics who
showed me scars that originated frompunishment meted out by such austere
foremen. The Tan brothers uncle, Tan Leong Soon, often started our conver-
sations by proudly showing two deep scars in the back of his head that he had
received fromheavy tools that his foreman at his first workshop used to throw
after and at him whenever he became dissatisfied with Leong Soons work.
Judging by the scars, tools had on two different occasions hit Leong Soon
quite badly on the head. Nevertheless, this is something that Leong Soon (like
many others) uses to prove his worth as a mechanic. This bodily inscription is
a sign of workmanship, and a workmanship heavily denoted as a sign of a cer-
tain form of masculinity intimately connected to bodily expressions and
bodily knowledge.
Within the field of research on different masculinities, the body is gener-
ally seen as a most fundamental feature in forming masculine identities (cf.
Nilsson 1999). This is not least so among the mechanics in Penang, espe-
cially the older ones. In what were once overwhelmingly illiterate communi-
ties, such as the more traditional Chinese communities of Jelutong, the
embodied knowledge and the bodily inscriptions of work practice were, and
to a large extent still are, extremely important. As mentioned earlier, such
embodied knowledge is rarely verbalized or codified in written terms.
Instead, the important skilled knowledge is transmitted and learnt through
practical work experience and training. A common practice among the older
foremen was to send off the apprentices on errandseither to buy coffee,
food, or to place bets on horses or pick up lottery numberswhenever any
vital engine parts were to be replaced or repaired. By such a practice, the
apprentices were gradually initiated into the mysteries of engines and thus
the foreman was able to control the process of learning. There was, and there
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 469
still remains, the fear that if the apprentice learns too much, he will then run
off and open his own workshop. To reveal too much of ones own knowledge
is then synonymous with losing authority and the power of judgment, not
only in the workplace but more generally in the community. Such power is
based on the embodiment of a patrilineal family structure in which many of
the family businesses were and still are based on embodied knowledge of
machines. In such a patriarchal family and community structure, machines
and technology in general come to be a metonymy for patriarchal responsi-
bility. Such a responsibility includes the role of the breadwinner man as
well as a moral responsibility of contributing to the well-being of the whole
community (Hallgren 1986).
One workshop mechanic I met with regularly once pointed toward an old
drill standing in a hidden corner of the workshop and said, Thanks to that old
machine, our family could survive when my father came to Penang in the
1930s. Through that machine, our father could make a living and build this
workshop. The father, dead and gone for many years and who had come to
Penang from a Hokkien province in southern China, had, by use of the drill,
been able to manufacture a sort of bicycle basket that he and the rest of the
family could sell to make a living. The social history of the machine was, in
this case, intimately linked with the subsistence, honour, and dignity of the
family in the local community. As Appadurai (1986, 5) suggested, it is in
such a case possible to read the social history of the artefact in relation to its
interaction with lives and society.
Another formof bodily inscription connected to masculinity and mechan-
ical skills can be found in some Malay motorcycle workshops in Penang. As a
general rule, most Malays stick to Malay workshops and Chinese to Chinese,
and Indians frequent mostly Chinese workshops. Without elaborating on the
ethnic topic here, one could say that such preferences reflect a pattern of con-
sumption and ethnic division that is a fundamental part of the Malaysian
society.
Nearly all the Malay workshops I have visited are in one way or another
connected to motorcycle racing in a legal form (i.e., not street racing). How-
ever, nine out of ten have their origins in street racing, something that is a big
thing among young Malay men in Penang and Kuala Lumpur. The illegal
street races in Penang are performed during off-peak traffic, late at night, on
the outskirts of Georgetown, in the suburbs and around the industrial zone
with its long and straight highways. By Swedish standards, off-peak Penang
traffic can be said to be like rush hour in any Swedish midsize town. Needless
to say, street racing is literally about risking ones life, and fatalities often
occur. These death races concern pride, gambling, money, women, and
470 Science, Technology, & Human Values
masculinity, in the sense that the best drivers and mechanics become infor-
mally renowned and are later picked up and hired by owners of other work-
shops who also operate racing teams on a smaller or larger scale. It is in such
workshops that I have met mechanics who used to be death riders or the
mechanics of those who ran or continue to run races. One of the first things
many of these young men usually eagerly show me are their body scars
caused by street-racing accidents. In one case, Latif, a 22-year old mechanic,
described in detail how he smashed into a car and flew ten metres in the air
and still miraculously survived. When he told the story to me, his friends
enthusiastically added details to the story, details that Latif had inadvertently
omitted in his own version of events. The scars are later scrutinized by me and
his friends to estimate which one is the worst or best, depending on what
angle one likes to take on the racing spectacle. Many of his friends apparently
admire himand his scars, and this certainly elevates his status within the peer
group. Such appreciation and admiration is normally also given to deceased
friends who are venerated for their courage and their tragic deaths. However,
there seems to be a generally held consensus that it is part of the game and that
deceased friends were just unlucky.
Anthropomorphized Relations
If mens relations with certain machines such as motorcycles and cars
cause innumerable accidents and fatalities such as we have seen in the case of
Latif and his friends, it does not mean that all relations with machines tend to
have such a character. In opposition to this, it is often so that people give
life to the machines by anthropomorphizing them; that is to say, machines
are given human qualities. This way of perceiving machines and artefacts
could be said to resemble a kind of animistic thinking, in which a deep per-
sonal relation is being created with the machine (cf. Bloomfield 1989;
Mellstrm 1995; Lie 1996). Such a relation is often made specific by giving
the machine a name. Machines may also evoke emotions that can be com-
pared with the kinds of emotions other personal social relations evoke and are
constituted by. Certain machines become dear objects and are transformed
into subjects receiving tender care as well as frustrated emotions in the inter-
action of which they are part. The distinction of what is human and nonhu-
man is not always that easy to account for (cf. Latour 1992).
As, for instance, Lie (1996, 54) argued, a scientific discipline such as
archaeology uses artefacts to reconstruct social systems, but a social scientist
rarely does this. One may then ask, To what extent do we become one with the
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 471
artefacts that surround us? In the world of the mechanics, as has been shown
above, in good workmanship, the subject-object dualismtends to disappear
it dissolves through an elaborated kinesthetic sense. How important such a
feeling is was illustrated by a colleague of mine, Robert, who used to work as
a technician operating an optical laser in an electronics firm. Here is an
excerpt of Roberts story about his machine:
As the laser performed its job, and lased and burnt tiny holes in conductive
material, it emitted a series of small blips, which sounded similar to a continual
streamof Morse code. If it was performing a certain programon a certain com-
ponent (substrate), then there would be a specific sequence of blips. If the
machine encountered an error, then this sequence would be slightly altered
(only very slightly). So, as well as being visually vigilant, I had also to keep my
ears on what the machine was doing. Due to the numerous faults the machine
had, it was necessary for me to constantly get up and fiddle with the machine
here or there, moving behind the machine, checking things, and adjusting the
settings and controls. This was a constant activity which punctuated any work I
did. Occasionally, the machine would be trouble-free. My confidence would
depend on my overall feeling on how the machine was running and how it had
been running that day or the fewdays previous to that. This confidence factor (a
feeling) was a crucial skill. The higher my confidence, the less manual testing I
performed, and the high-value products were thus manufactured faster. This
feeling was a crucial element in my relationship with the machine. Without this
feeling, the job could not be performed very well and maybe not at all. (per-
sonal communication, 2 June 1998)
Roberts description of his interaction with the laser certainly comes close
to dissolving Pirsigs subject-object dualism. Feeling the machine became an
integrated part of Roberts work practice, and his general moods were
reflected in how the laser was operating that particular day. His colleagues
often asked how the laser felt today and joked about fitting Robert into the
machine. The laser became, as Robert explained, a part of his self-conception
and affected howhe was received and characterized by his colleagues. In line
with the English anthropologist Marilyn Stratherns (1988) ideas about
dividuality and dividual persons, one could thus say that artefacts and
machines become partible bits of people that in themselves symbolically
transform and are being transformed in the interaction with others.
4
In the
work of Strathern (1988, ix), gender is then understood as the categorization
of persons, artefacts, events, and sequences. However, machines seem to
become part of mens dividuality to a much higher degree than womens
(Mellstrm 1995, 1999). This seems to be so if we judge by the communica-
tive aspects of our identity formations, and in particular if we see to the
anthropomorphized relations between man and machines.
472 Science, Technology, & Human Values
Feminized Machines
In the work of Strathern, gender is also understood as the categorization of
artefacts. This means that they are symbolically either masculinised or
feminised.
5
It is part of identity formation, but symbolically, the artefact is
given the opposite or the same sex. In a passage of his famous travel book In
Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin (1977, 79-80) wrote,
An old red Mercedes truck drove into the camp at eight and the driver stopped
for coffee. He was heading for Lago Posadas with a load of bricks and took me
on. Paco Ruiz was eighteen. He was a pretty boy with strong white teeth and
candid brown eyes. His beard and beret helped him cultivate the Che Guevara
look. He had the beginning of a beer stomach and did not like walking. His
father was a bank clerk who had scraped up the money for the truck. Paco loved
his truck and called her Rosaura. He scrubbed her and polished her and hung
her cab with lace frills. Above her dashboard he fixed a statuette of the Virgin of
Lujan, a St Christopher and a plastic penguin that nodded with the corrugations
of the road. He pinned nudes to the roof, but somehowthe girls were an abstrac-
tion whereas Rosaura was a real woman.
The passage continues with Paco Ruiz getting a puncture on Rosaura. The
jack Paco had brought with him is the wrong jack, and he is unable to lift the
vehicle high enough. Paco digs a hole out under the tire and succeeds in get-
ting the wheels detached, but as he removes the inner one, the foot of the jack
starts sinking into the road surface.
He dug a bigger hole under the axle, got the chassis jacked up so far, and even
got both the wheels back. But they were askew and couldnt tighten the nuts
and started booting the wheel and screaming:
Puta . . . puta . . . puta . . . puta . . . puta . . . putana . . . puta . . . puta. (P. 80)
Chatwin walks away to find help but cannot find any. When he returns, he can-
not see Paco, and he is getting scared that Paco is trapped underneath the truck.
After some horror-filled seconds, he finds Paco sitting away from the road
and realizes that he had tried again and his leg had been grazed when the jack
slipped off the axle. Pacos only comment is
Never kick the woman you love. (P. 80)
Paco has, in Chatwins story, clearly anthropomorphized and feminised
his truck, giving it the most beautiful name he can imagine, Rosaura. The
truck, in the eyes of Paco, is a woman and should consequently be treated on
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 473
the grounds a woman should be treated. The ruling principle for Paco is that
the woman you love is treated with care, passion, and tenderness. Paco is
broken-hearted because he has hurt himself, but he is equally broken-hearted
because he has hurt the woman he loves, Rosaura. To animate the machine
and give it human gender qualities is then something common that can be
observed in different corners of the world. Men also seemto frequently attrib-
ute their machines with the qualities they want to see in the one they love.
While human love relationships develop, deepen, and sometimes termi-
natemany men describe their relationships to their machines in a similar
fashion. Paco Ruiz does it on the tip of South America, far away from
Strlsns on the plains of stergtland, Sweden, which is the home of Johan,
a hobby mechanic, and his beloved Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. When Johan
described his dear car, he described it as a woman lying on her side with her
flesh located on the right spots. When he described his relationship with
her, he said, Imstill trying to get to knowher. It has been mine only for four
years. I think I need another five years at least before we really know each
other (interview excerpt, 23 September 1997).
Johan has dismantled her into separate parts and every single screw and
bolt has been scrutinized. It sometimes happens that he is sitting in front of
her for hours purely for enjoyment. Johan is obviously in love, and the car
was a fulfillment of a dream nourished and nurtured over many years. The
sound of the Corvettes 375-horsepower engine is like wonderful music to
Johan, and the feeling of driving and owning the car is just as joyful. Johan is
passionate about this material thing, and in this passion, the car assumes the
shape of a beautiful woman. The language of love is rarely sexless, and it is no
less the case here. Since Johan has previously dismantled his Corvette piece
by piece, he knows the machine intimately fromthe inside. He is absorbed by
the machine, and it has become an extension of himor that is at least the
way he described it. As we have previously seen, this is something he shares
with other motor, car, and boat enthusiastsand not least motorcycle enthu-
siasts. In his memoir book Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride. A Memoir About Men
and Motorcycles, Gary Paulsen (1997) wrote that he has met hundreds of
men and four women who owned Harleys, and they all said the samethat
the bike became an extension, took them, held them (p. 34). Whether the
four women that Paulsen met masculinized their Harleys is something he
unfortunately never commented on. However, what is most evident in the
descriptions of Paulsen is that the motorcycles are looked on as feminine
material things. They become obnoxious women who have, as Paulsen
(1997) wrote in a passage of his book, a serious element of bitchiness
involved, or:
474 Science, Technology, & Human Values
She would prove to be the crankiest piece of goddamn machinery I would ever
havechoke her too much and she flooded and wouldnt start, dont choke her
enough and shednever startand I would come to love her dearly. (Pp. 8-9)
Despite her shortcomings, Gary Paulsen still loves her, and in a classical
patriarchal manner, he is prepared to forgive her sins since he ultimately con-
trols her behaviour. In other words, it is the owner or the mechanic who
decides the fate of the feminine machine.
Concluding Words
One primary conclusion that can be drawn from the preceding discussion
is that to become one with the machine, be absorbed by her or simply by the
artefact, is something that is expressed in several ways by different men in
different cultural contexts, or more simply that different masculinities relate
differently to different technologies. In this article, the men portrayed are
identified with a formof hegemonic masculinity based mostly on mechanical
skills.
It has been argued here that the embodied practical knowledge referring to
machines such as cars and motorbikes is one important way of understanding
howsuch a formof masculinity is created, maintained, and enacted. Whether
it is in Penang, Strlsns, or Patagonia, it is quite clear that many men create
truly gendered spaces through their interaction and relationships with
machines. These homosocial masculine practices continuously exclude
women and perpetuate highly gendered societal spheres, in which men form
communities based on love and passion for machines. However, it also has
been shown that the excluded sex is often there by implication since the inter-
action with artefacts often takes on the gendered character of feminization,
but then rather as something that is part of a system of producing difference
between the sexes (cf. Strathern 1988, 65). The love and passion for machines
is in itself based on an anthropomorphization of the man-machine relation-
ship in which the machines are transformed into subjects in what might be
termed a masculine technical sociability. In such a sociability, machines are
understood as a means of a performative and embodied communication
enabling homosocial bonding linkages.
In other words, in the construction of brotherhoods and masculine frater-
nities, machines become essential elements in the sharing of these relation-
ships. This implies that it is the sharing of the intimate, personal, and embod-
ied knowledge of the anthropomorphized machines.
6
Consequently, the
Mellstrm / Masculine Embodiment 475
sharing of secrets and deep personal knowledge are known to be some of the
basic characteristics of friendship relations (Evaldsson 1993). For many
men, machines are a focus of their friendship relations and an integral aspect
of social interaction, acting as dear friends and colleagues, always ready to
make their voice heard. Moreover, to be able to skillfully hear that voice,
one requires long-term supervised occupational as well as cultural initiation
and training. Such initiation and training is a constitutive element of what it
means to be a man in these milieus (i.e., it belongs to the cultural definition of
a certain form of masculinity). The voice of the machine is then to be heard
with an intuitive kinesthetic sense that includes a dexterity that has to trans-
formthe voice of the machine into practical action. Such action in itself has to
be skillfully performed in a local context of stratification and evaluation.
Accordingly, it is my belief that this is a formula that applies to the mechanics
of Penang and to middle-class engineers in Sweden, as well as in many other
places (Bucciarelli 1994; Mellstrm 1995; Faulkner 2000).
In the different occupational practices I have studied, machines have come
to represent a long-lasting homosociality among men and between men and
machines. The technical masculine sociability that surrounds and interacts
with machines differs in relation to ethnicity and class, but nonetheless,
machines and the knowledge of machines serve as a focal point in which dif-
ferent forms of hegemonic masculinity are maintained. For instance, with the
mechanics in the older Chinese communities of Penang, masculinization of
power and patriarchal privileges are always closely connected to the knowl-
edge of certain machines.
Notes
1. For instance, in the work of Virginia Scharff (1991), we can see more specifically howthe
birth of the American automotive industry came to be closely intertwined with masculine images
of burly practicality and a grease-stained entrepreneurial character, in contrast to the Victorian
ideal of frail femininity.
2. Aone-year anthropological fieldwork including twenty life histories has been carried out
among mostly Chinese mechanics in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia.
3. For an overview of the Chinese communities of Penang, see Hallgren (1986).
4. In contrast to the idea of the individual person, the basic idea in Stratherns thinking about
the dividual person is, as Cornwall and Lindisfarne (1994, 41) elegantly explained, that she treats
human beings as having permeable, changing boundaries and experiencing constant movement
between different aspects of social life. Strathern argued that gender is one way such movement,
and the plural, divisible, and ever-changing elements on which it depends is conceptualised. In
so doing, she points to a far more subtle idea of personhood that most Western theories allowand
provides a way of thinking about difference which does not immediately collapse into dualism.
5. Lie (1996, 57) spoke about three different aspects of the relation between gender and
artefacts: (1) artefacts are given different gender meanings, (2) the same artefacts may be
476 Science, Technology, & Human Values
experienced differently by men and women, and (3) artefacts bring different messages when they
are used by a man then when used by a woman.
6. This is also something that becomes evident in Cynthia Cockburns work on male printers
(1983) and Paul Williss (1978) work on the male culture of the motorcycle.
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Ulf Mellstrm is an assistant professor in the Department of Technology and Social
Change, LinkpingUniversity, Sweden. He lectures regularly in social anthropology and
has since 1987 been a researcher at the interdisciplinary STS-department of Technology
and Social Change. He has previously published an ethnographic study on engineering
called Engineering Lives. Technology, Time and Space in a Male-Centred World (1995)
and a book on Men and Their Machines (1999). He is currently working on a
monography concerning technology and masculinity in Penang, Malaysia (forthcoming
2002, Ashgate).
478 Science, Technology, & Human Values