For the uninitiated, presumably all faculty and Ambrose Cole, there is this rising idea of an archetypal man. No Übermensch — this man is described as ‘performative’. Whereas the typical aspiration of masculinity has evolved from demonstrating your ability to hunt and gather better than the other males, this “newfound” method of chasing and attracting women is causing a stir: if you can’t be with them, join them. It is the adoption of feminine traits to attract women, the music taste defined by primarily bedroom-pop female artists, and the hyper-consumerism of small, highly coveted fur figurines, all in attempts to appeal to a demographic, typically women, that would see them more as a puppy than a wolf. It’s a term thrown around ad nauseam.  

I once got called performative for reading a book in a library in my history class, in which we were given a period to read our assigned book in the library. The idea of a performative male is the sociological equivalent of telling an inquisitive child that things are a way “because I said so”. It is an example of what author and clinical psychologist R.J. Lifton calls a “thought-terminating cliché”.  

Why would we look at an unstructured, perceived shift in traditional forms of masculinity when we could just call them performative? There is an inherent self-defeating nature in discourse around performative males. There exists a revived progressive framework that champions self-expression and challenges the rigidity of gender norms, yet oftentimes, the well-meaning gatekeepers to that in-group police ideas of masculinity in ways that would be recognized as problematic if otherwise applied.  

When progressives become the arbiters of what constitutes “authentic” versus “performative” masculinity, it creates a bizarre dynamic where men are expected to perform non-performance, demonstrating their genuineness through adherence to some unstated standard of masculine authenticity. But whose standard? And why should anyone else be the gatekeeper of someone’s self-expression? I want to make it clear that there are indeed men out there who do perform, there are men who alter parts of themselves only for the sake of being desirable, but that almost goes without saying.  

The preferred redundancy made clear by the usage of the term stifles self-expression in favor of conformity to what? Traditional masculinity? It’s often progressives who serve as the gatekeepers to ‘true’ left-wing demonstration, driving away what could be well-meaning, if not misguided, men. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle wherein progressive movements lose potential allies yet wonder why young men are gravitating toward reactionary alternatives in droves. Who wins in curtailing expression? The answer becomes increasingly clear as we look at the Gen Z polling data: extreme right-wing populists, whose movements and leaders must be laughing at younger generations doing their jobs for them.