The rise of the performative male

An unread novel plucked from the feminist canon, a Labubu dangling from a tote bag, and an "oak milk matcha" – spot them all, and you may have encountered an archetypal "performative male", said Ellie Violet Bramley in The Guardian. "Likened to the poser of the 90s" keen to convey their rarefied cultural tastes to the world at large, the performative male's "posturing" has a more targeted end goal: "to woo women they hope will be attracted by their feminist theatrics".

'Gender is inherently a performance'

Portraying these men as "the embodiment of pure deceit" is a lighthearted social media trend, said The Daily Tar Heel, but it also poses a serious question: "why do people feel so uncomfortable when men embrace their femininity"?

The performative male is just the latest in "a perpetual cycle of glorifying and later questioning the integrity" of men who dabble in feminine or queer aesthetics, said Kyndall Cunningham on Vox. After all, the opposite of a performative male – the macho "gym bro" – is an equally theatrical gender presentation. "Is it so bad to be 'performative' when gender is inherently a performance?" Social media is blamed for the spread of Andrew Tate's toxic masculinity, but it also deserves credit for bringing men who display "freedom around gender", such as Harry Styles, to a wider audience.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

That said, there are grounds for circumspection when it comes to heterosexual men broadcasting their supposed affinity with marginalised groups without facing any of the obstacles that hinder them. Often those men who feel most comfortable presenting themselves as sensitive or "feminine" already have a surfeit of "masculine capital", and it can even highlight their conventional attractiveness. Think of Styles baring his six-pack abs under a pink sequin vest or rugby-playing screen heartthrob Paul Mescal's penchant for jewellery.

No such thing as an 'authentic male'

The concept of the performative male as a master manipulator is due in part to dating apps fostering a pervasive climate of suspicion around the supposed machinations of heterosexual men. That's an "existentially depressing way to go through life" that puts men in an "impossible position", said politics lecturer Alexander Stoffel on The Conversation. "There is no such thing as an 'authentic male'" – and judging performances of masculinity as if "every man with a tote bag is a con artist" is just another way to reinforce traditional gender stereotypes.

Accusations of performative maleness come from a place of finding it "unfathomable that a straight man could want to read fiction or go to an expensive pilates class on Sunday morning – unless they're angling for a shag", said Lydia Spencer-Elliott in The Independent. It's the flip side of the fact that "for a long time, women couldn't wear football shirts or Pink Floyd merch without being labelled a 'fake fan'".

Between a man "begrudgingly scanning the greatest feminist works in history for the sake of pretending" or one who doesn't bother at all, "I'll take the faker every time", said Syeda Khaula Saad on HuffPost. Going against the hyper-masculine status quo, even if it is partly a façade, is still a hopeful act of resistance. Critics of the performative male are really mocking women's perceived gullibility and that's "insulting". The average woman is perfectly capable of discerning "between a red flag and a man with a library card".