There’s no such thing as a “performative male”

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MAGA, Labubu, Dubai chocolate …

I started high school at a time when “gay” was still being liberally thrown around as an insult.

​Any number of perceived offenses could bring on the epithet from young men who were equally fascinated and terrified by all things sexual. Eating food the wrong way, walking funny, saying a foreign word the right way. As a straight man who paid attention to how I dressed and liked how I looked in pink, I had it hurled my way quite a bit.

​Using it that way was déclassé by the time I was in college and an actionable offense by the time I entered the workforce. I was happy to see it shoved into history’s dustbin under a pair of ultra-low-rise jeans and a DVD box set of Fox’s “The Swan,” one more embarrassing relic of a less enlightened time. One interesting thing about getting older and staying aware of culture, however, you get to see the next generation revive the same retrograde trash in new, exciting ways.

​Enter the “performative male.” Meant to describe men who dress slightly feminine, listen to music with large, female fanbases and read (or, at least, pretend to read) feminist literature as a means of sparking the interest of young women, the term came into wider consciousness earlier this year. This collective prodding at the waves of young men who are presumably purchasing and reading bell hooks for the wrong reasons has sparked explainers, online quizzes and real-world costume contests after achieving critical mass on TikTok. It’s largely been taken as a bit of fun. If I may offer a brief rebuttal, it sucks.

​I did not spend my Obama-era, moral-arc-bending-toward-justice college years studying gender theory, but my wife did. And while I’m fully aware that the previous sentence would be red meat to the same undergrad classes that Mrs. Crash Course took, I’ve picked up a few things through conversational osmosis and a shared bookshelf. Judith Butler told us that all gender was a performance more than three decades ago. Tack an extra layer of acting on for socializing in public and raise that to the nth degree if the idea of courtship is on the cafe table. “Performative male” doesn’t even work as a standalone phrase, as the men it supposedly describes are not performing masculinity or traits associated with “maleness.”

​Even without cracking a book, “performative male” is a nasty piece of work. It’s creating an accepted set of books, music and clothing that men are supposed to like and eyeing those who venture outside of that box with suspicion. The trend is just gender essentialism dressed up in a cropped tee and accessorized with a single, dangly earring.

​But placing the way it’s used now to the side, “performative male” could be a useful term in 2025. Government accounts are using hallucinating computers to create fascist propaganda about barbarians and knights. The leader of the free world is sticking his uncallused fingers in the face of women reporters and yelling, “Quiet, piggy.” Manosphere podcasters fill out the president’s inner circle. A walking whiskey stone runs the Department of Defense. In that environment, “performative male” could be a helpful shorthand.

​When Trump threatens Democrats with the death penalty, when he scolds journalists for asking pressing questions, when he holds lackluster military parades, he’s play-acting for a cadre of fans raised on Dodge truck commercials. It would be nice to have an accusation to take the air out of such macho posturing.

​It’s a shame we’re using “performative male” to call men with tote bags “sissies.”

What do you think? Is it that serious? Am I a hit dog hollering? What’s a good all-encompassing term for MAGA masculinity? Sound off in the comments.

Before you go …

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