You hear him before you see him. The bits of the Clairo song that flitter through the headphones with a sound quality that can only mean they’re wired, the constant flipping of the pages of his copy of The Catcher and the Rye, the jingling of the labubu at his waist, and the clinking of the ice in his matcha latte—the common sounds of the performative male.
The performative male is often defined by their characteristics and behavior.
“Matcha, wired headphones, Lababu, Baggy Jorts, performative female literature,” Ephraim Nwabuko said. “So coming together to perform a facade that isn’t accurate or true.”
This facade includes participating in traditionally feminine activities, reading feminine literature, and saying common “feminist” statements.
The trend of performatism isn’t entirely new. Trends like the soft boy in the late 2010s and the pick me girl of today follow the pattern of pretending to be exactly what the opposite gender wants to a tee to access things like love and the wish to fit in.
“They most likely do it for approval.” Junior Erica Carranza said, “Historically, the men who participate in feminine activities and appear to support women in general have always tended to be the men who receive the most validation from them.”
This behavior could also stem from a hidden superiority complex.
“I believe it’s just the idea that they just want to be seen as someone who’s greater than people who are not feminists, and thus they lie about being these types of people,” sophomore Hadassah Hernandez said, “So to take the safe route, they’re not going to say anything really controversial.”
But their behavior doesn’t only get attributed to them; there may be a psychological explanation behind performative actions.
“Psychology-wise, we tend to say that we would do a lot of things, even if we were not to actually do it,” sophomore Vivian Tran said, “That’s what performative males do. They say they would defend women, and they believe they’re such a good person because they say they’re going to do all these things, but really they just end up not doing it.”
With this new wave of faux feminists, especially mirroring the older trend of “not like other girls”, some students can even begin to understand these perspectives.
“When I was younger, it was cool to be ‘like the boys’, and that often meant putting down other women to join them,” said Carranza, “Looking back, I think a lot of girls pretended to be ‘different’ because being girly was and still is often considered embarrassing. I think with that embarrassment, now starting to trend towards men, we’re seeing a lot more of them trying to be different to avoid it.”
We absolutely have a hand in the creation of performative males, so it’s possible to put limits on them too.
“The way you stop it is you call it out when you see it,” Nwabuko said. “When you see performative men, you don’t acquiesce or appease or give them extra matcha or give them the red Labubu. You tell them to stop, and you prioritize women in your discussions.”
While their rise does have the potential to cause mix-ups between them and real feminists, their differences remain pretty obvious.
“I think the difference is their actions.” Tran said, “A performative male would go online and post about defending women, but a real feminist would just go out and do it.”
The movement isn’t entirely bad either, and could even provide some hidden benefits.
“To younger kids, the idea of someone being super-duper feminist and allowing girly things is actually really good for little kids.” Hernandez said, “For younger kids who don’t exactly understand how it’s bad, they’ll probably become more feminist in a way.”
“I don’t think performative men are entirely bad,” Carranza said, “I would rather have a bunch of performative feminist men than men who aren’t feminist at all.”
While their current perception isn’t entirely positive, that could be subject to change. Only time will really tell if these performances will stay performative or if they will finally leave their online stage to make a real difference in the world.
