I was raised around a lot of Gen X guys even though I was slightly younger, and I worshipped at the altar of authenticity for a long time. In some ways, I still do.
But you can see the purity spiral get out of control with it: eventually, you have to give the impression you were pushed out of the womb with a fully formed identity you were perfectly comfortable with, and any indication otherwise is allowing a weakness. The mask can’t have any visible seams.
And that’s idiotic. It doesn’t allow for what you can do with self-creation and commitment. Most other things I believe in come back to placing reason over comfort, being who you decide to be, what’s right to be, instead of just doing what feels “natural” which is usually stasis. We need room for that.
Well said. I have made dramatic changes myself for the better over the years, but all of them took time to become fully integrated into my personality. There is also a process of overcorrection and finding the mean.
"I suspect that many of these so-called performative males are simply desperate for female attention or approval."
I think that's spot-on. There are definitely sneaky fuckers out there. I can easily imagine Patrick Bateman delivering a feminist lecture (in front of his next female victim).
But there's that old adage about not attributing to malice what's easily explained by ignorance. In this case, it's an unfamiliarity with the self. Mommy / daddy issues are difficult to notice within ourselves, and we're usually motivated to overlook them.
Overlooking them might involve a defense like reaction formation… the man who feels injured and angry at women, finds that anger intolerable, and squashes it by idealizing women and seeking their approval. But I think I'm just repeating what you said.
That last bit is interesting, as mommy issues could mean a lot of things. With so many men raised by single mothers, seeking female approval and being the best little boy might be a default setting. In other cases, it could be a little darker, like what you described. I could also see that leading to trans.
I think the “dudes just want chicks” explanation is too narrow.
Of course men want women. That is timeless. But much of what gets labeled “performative” looks less like desperation for female approval and more like positioning within male hierarchy.
Every man has an internal APEX, a vision of the man he wants to become. That vision is shaped largely in comparison to other men. We calibrate ourselves against male peers, mentors, and rivals long before we ever seek validation from women.
What can look like play acting is often apprenticeship. Men try on behaviors, beliefs, and aesthetics to see where they fit and how they measure up. The audience is frequently other men.
There are certainly opportunists out there. But more often, this is about status, belonging, and the pursuit of respect within a chosen tribe.
Francis Fukuyama (the End of History guy) has written about the Greek idea Thymos, the need to be esteemed by those we hold in high esteem. This has made a lot of sense to me since I first read it. That kind of esteem is, I would say, hard to earn. Short cuts are always a temptation. Such as making yourself an expert in a niche area.
For decades we were told masculinity itself was a “performance,” a hollow script imposed on interchangeable humans. Now the same crowd is alarmed that some men are performing feminism. The circular logic would be amusing if it were not so revealing.
What this actually exposes is not that masculinity is fake. It shows that status seeking and impression management are human constants. Men compete. Men imitate. Men test themselves within hierarchies. That is not ideology. It is anthropology.
The modern mistake is confusing signaling with substance.
As I have written:
“We live in a time when attention is treated as achievement and performance is mistaken for progress. Social media amplifies outrage, visibility, and the ability to be seen in a crowded space, but these are not measures of action.”
That applies directly here. Wearing the slogan, holding the right book in public, adopting the approved posture, none of that equals conviction. But dismissing all male behavior as theatrical does not make it so either.
Trying to fit into a male group, adopting its habits, testing new pursuits, these are not acts of deception. They are stages of development. Some men posture opportunistically. Some are desperate for approval. But pathologizing the instinct to compete for status and belonging requires denying basic human nature.
The language of performance has been stretched so far that it now distorts reality. Not everything is a mask. Not everything is fake. Much of what critics ridicule is simply men navigating hierarchy in a modern environment that rewards optics over competence.
The issue is not that men perform.
The issue is that we have built a culture where performance is often all that is required.
I was raised around a lot of Gen X guys even though I was slightly younger, and I worshipped at the altar of authenticity for a long time. In some ways, I still do.
But you can see the purity spiral get out of control with it: eventually, you have to give the impression you were pushed out of the womb with a fully formed identity you were perfectly comfortable with, and any indication otherwise is allowing a weakness. The mask can’t have any visible seams.
And that’s idiotic. It doesn’t allow for what you can do with self-creation and commitment. Most other things I believe in come back to placing reason over comfort, being who you decide to be, what’s right to be, instead of just doing what feels “natural” which is usually stasis. We need room for that.
Well said. I have made dramatic changes myself for the better over the years, but all of them took time to become fully integrated into my personality. There is also a process of overcorrection and finding the mean.
Just finished lifting in the garage, shirtless, winter, mogging neighbors between sets. They think I’m insane, performative male.
That’s like a whole genre of Instagram influencers.
"I suspect that many of these so-called performative males are simply desperate for female attention or approval."
I think that's spot-on. There are definitely sneaky fuckers out there. I can easily imagine Patrick Bateman delivering a feminist lecture (in front of his next female victim).
But there's that old adage about not attributing to malice what's easily explained by ignorance. In this case, it's an unfamiliarity with the self. Mommy / daddy issues are difficult to notice within ourselves, and we're usually motivated to overlook them.
Overlooking them might involve a defense like reaction formation… the man who feels injured and angry at women, finds that anger intolerable, and squashes it by idealizing women and seeking their approval. But I think I'm just repeating what you said.
That last bit is interesting, as mommy issues could mean a lot of things. With so many men raised by single mothers, seeking female approval and being the best little boy might be a default setting. In other cases, it could be a little darker, like what you described. I could also see that leading to trans.
Yeah, I would guess this default-setting explanation is more common than the darker one.
I think the “dudes just want chicks” explanation is too narrow.
Of course men want women. That is timeless. But much of what gets labeled “performative” looks less like desperation for female approval and more like positioning within male hierarchy.
Every man has an internal APEX, a vision of the man he wants to become. That vision is shaped largely in comparison to other men. We calibrate ourselves against male peers, mentors, and rivals long before we ever seek validation from women.
What can look like play acting is often apprenticeship. Men try on behaviors, beliefs, and aesthetics to see where they fit and how they measure up. The audience is frequently other men.
There are certainly opportunists out there. But more often, this is about status, belonging, and the pursuit of respect within a chosen tribe.
Francis Fukuyama (the End of History guy) has written about the Greek idea Thymos, the need to be esteemed by those we hold in high esteem. This has made a lot of sense to me since I first read it. That kind of esteem is, I would say, hard to earn. Short cuts are always a temptation. Such as making yourself an expert in a niche area.
His is such a weird interpretation of thymos/thumos. That definition sounds more like honor.
I think of thumos as being “spirited righteousness aimed at justice.” Purest example I can think of is the guys who enlisted after 9/11.
For decades we were told masculinity itself was a “performance,” a hollow script imposed on interchangeable humans. Now the same crowd is alarmed that some men are performing feminism. The circular logic would be amusing if it were not so revealing.
What this actually exposes is not that masculinity is fake. It shows that status seeking and impression management are human constants. Men compete. Men imitate. Men test themselves within hierarchies. That is not ideology. It is anthropology.
The modern mistake is confusing signaling with substance.
As I have written:
“We live in a time when attention is treated as achievement and performance is mistaken for progress. Social media amplifies outrage, visibility, and the ability to be seen in a crowded space, but these are not measures of action.”
That applies directly here. Wearing the slogan, holding the right book in public, adopting the approved posture, none of that equals conviction. But dismissing all male behavior as theatrical does not make it so either.
Trying to fit into a male group, adopting its habits, testing new pursuits, these are not acts of deception. They are stages of development. Some men posture opportunistically. Some are desperate for approval. But pathologizing the instinct to compete for status and belonging requires denying basic human nature.
The language of performance has been stretched so far that it now distorts reality. Not everything is a mask. Not everything is fake. Much of what critics ridicule is simply men navigating hierarchy in a modern environment that rewards optics over competence.
The issue is not that men perform.
The issue is that we have built a culture where performance is often all that is required.