As if the performative man was not bad enough, our cities are now being taken over by these tote-bag wearing, matcha drinking, Clairo listeners in a phenomenon of competitions. Similar to the celebrity look-alike contests that were popular about ten months ago, these competitions exist to fuel the fire of another problematic type of man. Also, let’s be honest, the men who participated in the Paul Mescal look-alike contests were already performative men…
Firstly, to justify why these contests must be put to an end, the performative man himself must be explained. The performative man is essentially the new type of man to be extremely wary of, as they adopt certain personality traits and physical features in order to mask their true identity: fuckboy. This genre of man exists to seduce women for as little or as long as they choose, often breaking things off because they are ‘too damaged’ or ‘need to focus on themselves’. Consequently, they peacock themselves in a way to appear more attractive. They complete this in a series of ways, including interests in: dogs, babies, astrology, climbing, clairo and above all, feminist literature. However, when asked what their favourite piece of feminist literature is, many will be stumped…
The competitions to determine who the ultimate performative man is began popping up over this summer and are still raging wildly, with one happening in London just last Saturday. London’s competition took place in Soho Square Gardens and included a dazzling array of performative feminism, such as throwing tampons, preaching about equal rights and playing Clairo songs on the ukulele. Ostensibly, these competitions can be interpreted as satirically mocking this breed of performative male feminists as they are ridiculed for their limited knowledge of The Bell Jar, despite claiming it’s their favourite book.
However, truthfully, these competitions are more harmful than they seem, as they belittle genuine acts of feminism and allow for a male-dominated narrative to continue. Whilst male performative feminist actions are laughed at and made to appear trivial online, if a woman were to engage in an act of performative feminism, she would be scorned. For example, the hit Taylor Swift song, ‘The Man,’ discussed the difficulties of being a woman and preached the importance of feminism. Yet, this song was rendered a performative act and was a big hit to Taylor Swift publicly, as she was mocked for her unserious manner. This is simply one instance of a case like this, which demonstrates the need for these contests to stop.
Ultimately, whilst these contests are harmfully performative, they are also overwhelmingly irritating as performative men, for the most part, do not care about women. They are a problematic species of man looking to exploit women, which is why we need to stop giving fuel to their fire and stop the performative man contests.
Image by Devon Wilson on Unsplash.