The Problem with “Performative Males”
by Vivienne Waite, Contributor
Recently, a friend of mine was accused of being a performative male (shoutout Nick). The accusation was made on the basis of his MoMA tote bag, vintage shirt, and pearl necklace. These things paint a picture of a guy that appreciates art and enjoys wearing feminine jewelry—classic signs of the performative male.
This type of ingenuine male has had slight aesthetic changes, but the suspicions and accusations have been the same. They have been e-boys, hipsters, soft boys. There has been an internet archetype of a man that doesn't follow traditionally masculine aesthetics that the internet creates, then shames because “boys don't do that.” The first signs of a type of performative male were first presented to us in the e-boy scene of TikTok. The e-boy, for those unaware, is a type of alternative-style guy who takes on internet aesthetics. The e-boy wears multiple necklaces, paints his nails, and perhaps dyes his hair. These e-boys noticed that doing traditionally feminine things made them popular. This is the same philosophy behind the performative male—only the performative male is a feminist.
Knowing what we know about the performative male, let's dive deeper into why a man would perform feminism and femininity. This, too, has roots in TikTok and the need to categorize ourselves into an aesthetic. The issue is that these aesthetics skew our idea of what is genuine. Can an aesthetic that is a trend be authentic? The popularity of the e-boy has proven that the algorithm (of presumably women) wants to see men that do these traditionally feminine things. Men see this and have the ability to take advantage. In the age of pickup artists and dating coaches, men online have been plotting and scheming new ways to trick women into sex. Women feel a more intense need to protect themselves from these horny devils. Performative males realize women want men that read and are a feminist, so they will pretend to read Simone de Beauvoir in your local Starbucks, hoping to catch your eye, to bait you like a fish.
However, this trend of shaming men for participating in stereotypically feminine things is mostly negative for that reason alone. I absolutely understand why women feel a need to do so. It’s not only protective — it feels good, especially since girls have lived their entire lives facing accusations in a similar vein: “She doesn’t actually like video games, she’s just doing it for attention.” “Make sure to take her swimming on the first date, you don’t actually know what she looks like until the makeup is off.” And the classic, “Oh, you like Nirvana? Name five songs.” It is not surprising that some women would relish in getting revenge on men for making us question the root of our character and interests constantly. However, this does us more harm than good.
The accusation of being a performative male translates to: “I think the stereotypically feminine things about you, that you like and enjoy, are not genuine. And I think you are doing so for the attention of women.” This is nothing but a flipped version of the accusations women and young girls face: “I think the stereotypically masculine things about you, that you like and enjoy, are not genuine. And I think you are doing so for the attention of men.” We are not even taking into account the many gay men (and men that just genuinely enjoy more “feminine” things) that pretend to like things like sports to appease the gendered society we exist in. That is a performance. We aren't taking into account women that would prefer to play with Lego Ninjago over Lego Friends, but they drift towards Lego Friends because it is more feminine, and this is what society expects of them. That is performative. We are constantly declaring certain types of people to be “performative,” but only in a way our gendered society accepts. This is because all gender is performative.
With the accusations of performative males we are doing nothing but flipping this back on men. Which can seem empowering at first glance, but who else would agree with the accusations of a performative male? What group would think men enjoying things women happen to enjoy wouldn't be true or genuine? Conservatives. The timing of this accusatory trend is funny. Conservatism is on the rise, and we are making fun of men for reading when there is a literacy problem in America and our president is quoted saying “I love the poorly educated.” We are doing nothing but reinforcing gender roles and subtly urging men to go back to doing more traditionally masculine and harmful stereotypes.
We are all performing in some way. If men are experimenting with more stereotypically feminine clothes, jewelry, literature, why not let them? I realize as women, we just want to protect ourselves from the type of men that lie to get sex, especially in the landscape of Gen Z dating culture. However, this specific type of shaming does more harm than good. This trend of the performative male has snowballed so much and has touched so many corners of the internet. It started out as a (mostly harmless) joke about gender roles and has escalated to making men insecure in their style and veering away from wearing pearls for fear of being accused of being performative. Perhaps such a man would then feel pressured into wearing more masculine-looking clothes. Now he has been molded to gender norms and is performing, but without the designation of “performative male.” All this to say: Be careful of manipulators of any kind, and remember that anything that reinforces gender roles in a patriarchal society does not do well for women.
