I am puzzled and fascinated by the gendering of inanimate objects, such as when “lady” cars have eyelashes stuck over the headlights. More recently, I have been both puzzled and irritated by the gendering of a space: a “man cave”-decorated medical clinic that I visited.
The DriverCheck man cave
Immigration paperwork sent me deep into industrial Kitchener. The closest service provider was DriverCheck, a company that specializes in occupational medical assessments. They formed specifically to serve the trucking industry, providing medical testing, including drug testing, and other services (e.g., fingerprinting) that drivers need to maintain their licenses or to drive in the US. They provide services for other industries as well, especially around drug and alcohol testing.
The clinic seemed like a cross between a sports bar and a garage: large tv with some athletic game on, cozy couches, red and black colour scheme, construction signs on the wall, and a large plaque that proclaimed the space to be “MAN CAVE.” A newspaper clipping on the wall described the opening of this man-cave medical clinic.
I don’t think I would have bat an eye had it not been for that sign. It put me off on the whole place. I don’t have a problem with sports-themed decor, nor do I think CEO and physician Chris Page’s reasons for focusing on the trucking industry are problematic. But why code it as male?
Are all truckers men?
In 2014, Page described his decorating choices as intended to appeal to truckers: “The whole motif of the clinic is it’s driver-friendly. It looks like a cross between a man cave and a clinic [. . .] It’s to make (drivers) more comfortable and to make it easier for them to get their medical done. So they have someplace where they can just pop in. There’s coffee and Internet access, and there’s a power bar to charge cell phones and laptops. This is really a thank you to drivers.”
Okay, but why presume all truckers are male? Or sports/man-cave loving males? Or that sports are the purview of men? And what kind of masculinity is captured by the “man cave”? Is it white, cis, and straight?
There’s also an uncomfortable connection between workplace drug-testing, masculinity, and class in the back of my brain, but it’s not well articulated at this point.
Because I’m hoping to immigrate, I imagine what other new and hopeful Canadians might think entering this space. I wondered what female employees thought of working in a place explicitly demarcated as excluding women. I wished I woud have asked the person who took my fingerprints, who I read a female-presenting.
In my imagination I sneak into the man cave. I hang posters of vegan body-builder (and Star Trek actor and stunt person) Spice Williams-Crosby. What challenges hegemonic masculinity more than vegan female athletes/Star Trek actors?
Man caves everywhere!
Last week I returned to deep Kitchener, this time to go shopping with a friend for running shoes. We skipped the store that advertised itself as a Man Cave, but I did pause to snap a picture (see above).
Let’s not criticize the sports-man cave connection at the expense of other man caves. I remember going to a store in Kitchener to shop for gaming stuff. Some people were assembling Warhammer 40K game pieces. I play an all-male Space Wolves army. The “sons of Fenris” and the 40K universe in general have plenty of in-world gender issues, but that doesn’t bother me as much as feeling scrutinized when I enter a space where it’s clear gamers who look like me aren’t wanted (or perhaps worse, not taken seriously).
Resistance
Maybe I’ll send DriverCheck a home-made Spice Williams post card for their wall.