Do you even lift, bro? Hyper masculinity and the modern man
While women are increasingly able to enter male spaces, men remain confined to their traditional roles, warns Hatty Farnham.
Rucksacks. The colours of unisex rucksacks generally encompass rusty oranges, khaki greens, and navy blues — and surprise, surprise, the colours of men’s rucksacks are the same shades. Women’s bags, however, range from baby blues to light purples and hot pinks, but never do the unisex colours feature in the girls only section.
The choice clearly illustrates that women can wear masculine colours but men can’t wear the feminine colours. Unisex, it would seem, is a term applied to men’s stuff in an attempt to offer a wide selection, and to appeal to women who don’t want a putrescent shade of lilac on their hiking kit.
The women’s option is marked, different. Women can have special bags designed just for their bodies, in their favourite colours. Men don’t need bags designed just for them, because they can wear the normal ones (often the bags labelled as men’s offer exactly the same features as the unisex bags).
The colour-coded procedure for classifying items as male or female is rooted in the notion that women can enter both male and female realms, while men must stay within their own. It’s the same social construction that allows Hollywood to assume that women will watch guy films as well as girl films, but men won’t be so flexible: action movies target men and women, but romance films are aimed at chicks.
Tonnes of articles have suggested the affects these stereotypes have on women. But what does it all mean for men?
Whereas, in our post-feminist cultural climate, women are increasingly able to participate in pursuits or careers previously unavailable to them, conventional expectations of masculinity continue to confine men to relatively fixed traditional roles. The rise of the male beauty industry (or the male grooming industry as we’re supposed to call it, because, er, only women can be beautiful) demands the modern man to achieve traditional masculinity and to look a certain way while doing it.
Men’s bodies are beginning to receive the attention women’s have faced for years. Men are pressured to follow certain rules in order to maintain a slim and healthy body, to be athletic, to consume the exact amount of protein which will allow them to work on their legs one day and their upper body the next.
Lad culture has reinforced stereotypes and gender binaries, leading men to believe that the worst crime against masculinity is to act like a girl. Masculinity is diminished and men are aligned with the lesser sex if they show signs of physical weakness, give off emotional signals, or wear feminine colours.
Worryingly, those who are seen to ignore or disrupt gendered norms or binaries are often subject to hostility and experience a disproportionately high percentage of reported hate-crimes. In 2012, for example, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reported that transgender women suffered 53.8% of anti-LGBTQ homicides across the United States and Canada, a 40% increase since 2011.
The attitude which values lads or hyper-masculine men over “weaker” men allows our culture to value men over women. In turn, traits traditionally associated with masculinity (bodily strength, rationality, control) come to occupy a sacred social space, and comparatively, traits associated with femininity (beauty, emotion, empathy) are demeaned and devalued.
This damaging attitude deems that men shouldn’t demonstrate any supposedly feminine traits. Men can only be “real” men if they distance themselves from qualities that we were all born with: the ability to empathise, care, listen and show emotion, for example.
Confusingly, this myth of masculinity has been propagated by the same media channels and commercial industries which, in recent years, have also been busy redefining the ways men should look. In the early noughties, cosmetics companies realised that they could be cashing in on the other 50% of the population and turned their gaze towards men. How do you get men to spend their money (on products previously associated with femininity, vanity, and endless hours in front on the mirror)? You rebrand the same gunk, pump it into navy blue bottles, and tell men that being well groomed is fast, easy, and essential to conquering women and the world.
Gender politics are continually reinforced in the advertising for such products. The model in the men’s Nivea advert is out and about or playing sport, while in the women’s advert close-ups of the female model show her in the bathroom in her underwear. The straplines in the adverts for women assure her she can take control of the little things, like her frazzled hair or fading looks. Meanwhile, men are promised much bigger and better things with the help of product X.
Perhaps the least subtle example of this is the “Spray more, get more” advert for Lynx, featuring an average looking man and hundreds of wild horny women.
A common argument that crops up when discussing the objectification and sexualisation of women’s bodies is “I wouldn’t mind so much if we got to see pictures of naked men too!” Unfortunately, men are increasingly subject to this treatment but while women are often presented in degrading and violent situations, or non-consensual positions, men are appear appear strong and confident, even when they’re objectified.
Compare, for example, Jarrod Scott’s naked photoshoot for Vogue with Kate Moss’s photoshoot for the magazine a few years earlier.
It is doubly damaging when advertisements illustrate that men are strong-while-objectified because subconsciously it suggests that both they, and the male viewer, are not affected by the messages and ideals purported by the fashion and advertising industries. That somehow, because they are muscly men, they are immune to the media and its affects.
Why is it that the male beauty industry hasn’t changed our expectations of hyper-masculinity despite demanding more of men in the looks department and asking them to be, let’s face it, a little more girlie? The male beauty industry has implemented an unfair exchange and no one has seemed to notice. The modern woman experiences pressure to succeed in both her professional and domestic lives while striving for an unachievable level of beauty, but if she plays by the rules, she can also, with increasing ease, earn access to the male sphere, to a career and to a public voice. Men, on the other hand, have been asked to groom, to moisturise, to manscape, but they are still expected to be real men. And real men don’t cry.
What will happen if these pressures continue? Cosmetic procedures for men increased by 106% between 1997 and 2012. Men may not be all that bothered about claiming the girlie colours for their backpacks, but they should be worried about reclaiming their bodies from exploitation and objectification.
While demanding that men engage with fashion and beauty (two industries that promise women self-expression) our culture cheats men of the emotional and social expression available to women. Men are dehumanised by a society that views them only for their physical strength. If we’re not careful, then self-objectification and self-loathing, issues women are all too familiar with, will become a reality for men too.
Originally published at abstractmag.com on March 12, 2014.
