ABSTRACT
The subject of this chapter is how firefighters negotiate the masculine aura and heroism that is associated with the profession. As previous studies of this profession have shown, male firefighters tend to have an ambivalent relationship with the expectations on them to express masculinity. It has been stated that male firefighters consider heroism and the masculine heroic image useful resources in some respects, for instance, by being respected and trusted when arriving at accident sites (Baigent, 2001; Engström et al., 2012; Ericson, 2004; 2011; Häyrén-Weinestål et al., 2011; Olofsson, 2012; Tracy and Scott, 2006). At the same time these stereotypes also make male firefighters vulnerable to being positioned as too concerned with masculine bravado and cultivating machismo, as if they are outdated and in desperate need of support in becoming respectable and modernised (Ericson, 2010; 2011). In other words, it seems that heroism and masculine idealisation could also position male firefighters as in need of social intervention, rather than the other way around.
