‘A real men’s profession’ : Finnish sailors and masculinities at the beginning of the twentieth century

Abstract

This chapter explores different aspects of early twentieth-century sailor masculinity by examining how Finnish sailors themselves described what it took to be a sailor, how sailors should have behaved, and how their personal professional identity changed with age and changes in family situations. The main source is a collection of sailors’ oral history writings collected in 1963. The focus is on the different aspects of sailor masculinity both on board and ashore, but also on the different masculine ideals sailors had to balance due to being both sailors and men with family responsibilities. The categorisation of the sailor profession as a bachelor profession in previous research is criticised by placing sailors’ masculinities within wider late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century understandings of gender.