Drawing on ethnographic research in a low-income neighborhood in Cairo and informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu and feminist scholarship, this paper explores the body as physical capital that can be converted to economic, cultural, and social forms of capital. This conversion is strongly linked to gender and is particularly central to masculinity, which is deeply connected to a man’s ability to provide and to embody strength, respectability, and good taste. Labor is key to these processes. In this neighborhood, most men work not because of a desire to actualize an autonomous self or because of an abstract sense of individual satisfaction or success. Rather, they work for long hours in difficult jobs to materialize the norms that define proper and caring men. In the context of recent economic and political changes, this endeavor has become increasingly challenging given the difficulties of securing adequate housing, good education, affordable food, and necessary health care. The more the state withdraws from offering these services and the higher the social pressures to engage in conspicuous consumption, the more of a burden is placed on men and women to secure access to these basic services and to satisfy the growing needs of their loved ones. Looking at two siblings at different stages of their life, tracing their journey to adulthood, employment/unemployment, marriage, and parenthood, this paper explores the relationship between neoliberal rationalities, work, and gendered and classed bodies in urban Egypt. It addresses questions such as: How do these changes shape the performativity of gender? How does the standing of a man change when he is not able to find a stable job and cannot convert his physical capital to other forms of capital? How does work structure the body and its daily rhythms?