ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the author male informants incorporated such traditionally feminine activities into their masculine identities, and simultaneously represented their masculinities through their embodied performativity, sensory knowledge about domestic tasks, and home creativity. Different masculinities are constructed, lived and represented uniquely in relation to the structural, spatial, material, visual, sensory and social elements of men’s homes. The chapter examines how in engaging in housework and home creativity the author informants conformed to, resisted or acted in counterpoint to architectural structures, traditional domestic practices, routines and knowledge, and gender discourses. Although the masculine adventure narrative described by both English and Spanish men might imply spontaneity as opposed to routine, in fact their approaches to routine were strikingly similar to those of non-housewife women of their respective cultures. A comparison of the author English and Spanish men informants shows that, as for women, their approaches to routine differed according to culturally specific understandings.
