Performative Males: Evolved Gender Expression from 80’s Loser to Matcha-Loving Feminist

“Gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors” -Judith Butler, feminist and gender philosopher.

A performative male reads (or pretends to read) feminist literature, such as the aforementioned Judith Butler. He acknowledges women’s hardships like the patriarchy, oppressive beauty standards and period cramps. He is emotionally intelligent, and he’s better than other men that hurt women.

He carefully curates his appearance, mannerisms and words to display this identity.

The performative male contest is a public satirization of this new phenomenon. Performative men, or other male-presenting people pretending to be them, compete for the title of the best one.

Theo Bayne, although not identifying as a male, thought it’d be hilarious to win the contest.

As they meticulously and rigorously prepared for the performative male contest at 1:00 p.m., Sept. 17 at Red Square, I couldn’t help but think of Judith Butler’s –-and many other notable gender theorists’—philosophy. Gender is not inherent; it’s practiced, it’s learned. It’s repeated throughout history to create what we know as a seemingly concrete binary.

The rest of the night, they gathered supplies: a white undershirt, tampons for their tote bag, a he/him pronoun pin and white wired earbuds for an iPod mini. In the end, they embodied what the internet has dubbed “a performative male”.

All these objects have a culturally curated meaning that changes throughout time. These things have meaning because we make it so. We, as a society, use culture, trends, stereotypes, etc. to attach significance to everything we see.

Take the he/him pronoun pin. When someone introduces themselves with their pronouns, they signal to their audience that they accept queer and trans people. To an extent, they signal to people around them that they are a safe, open-minded person, a liberal and a feminist.

According to research done by Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, 53% of Gen Z women identify as a feminist, while only 32% of Gen Z men do.

So by signaling with a pronoun pin that you accept the queer community, and further that you are a feminist, you are in turn, suggesting to everyone around you that you are part of the minority of men who identify as a liberal.

Identifying as a feminist, as a liberal, is an imperative part of being a performative male. To performative men, the majority of women are attracted to liberal men rather than conservatives because women feel comfortable and safer around feminists.

Which is why performative men gloat about their feminist literature, about the women artists they listen to, about how much they despise periods. It’s to signal they’re safe to be around, and further, they’re safe to date.

Although it seems performative men suddenly took over everyone’s TikTok and ForYou Page like a wildfire, they’ve been brewing for years.

Simone de Beauvoir, another feminist theorist whom performative men might tote as their favorite author, thinks gender is a manifestation of history.

Through different media in history, the romcoms of the 80s, the sitcoms of the 90s and 2000s and the rise of the internet, people see the ideal young men for young women. They’re usually “not like other guys.” They’re sensitive, they understand and care about women beyond just their bodies; they’re nice.

So, the performative male is just repeating gender performance individuals have been acting out for years– the nice guy. He’s an evolution of the loser guy the popular girl will never notice.

While the performative man himself is an evolution of the “nice guy”, the phenomenon of performative male contests is just an evolution of the mockery of the same type of people.

Women have caught on to the “nice guy” performance, and they realize “nice guys” are dangerous, just like douche-bag jocks or Trump-loving gun holders. They can still manipulate or coerce women.

Women on the internet ridicule typical nice-guy performances and their manipulation tactics. They parody phrases like “you’re so much better than me”, or “women never go for nice guys like me”.

The performative male contest is just an evolution of mocking that nice guy. Yet this time, the nice guys, the performative men, are participating in this teasing.

Although the performative male contest only had two competitors, it was fierce competition. So would Clark performative men be good to women? Bayne says, “Oh, absolutely. I’m good to all women.”

Later, they said, “I don’t wanna go to lunch dressed like this.”