Researching Men and Masculinities as a Woman: A Feminist Geography Reflection

Feminist research on men and masculinities contributes valuable understandings toward gender negotiations and relations in leisure. However, feminist women researchers often face safety concerns while pursuing projects with men participants and within masculine-dominated spaces. The purpose of this article is to provide a feminist geography perspective on a woman researcher’s experiences researching men and masculinities in the strength-based area of a fitness center. The reflections were generated from six months of participant observations in a Canadian university fitness center and were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings consider the impact of researchers being the object of sexualization and questioning and its implications on their experience of body, identity, and power in the field and with participants. It contributes to knowledge surrounding relational politics in fieldwork and ethnographic-based research in masculine-dominated spaces.