If you’ve been lucky enough — or unlucky depending on your frame of mind — you may have seen a certain breed of tote-bag-carrying men roaming the streets, their numbers growing alarmingly.
You can smell their bright-green vanilla-, lavender-, or strawberry-flavored matcha from a mile away. You can hear the clinking of their carabiners, overcrowded with Labubus and various keychains, chiming in the wind.
They sit patiently waiting for their next opportunity to flaunt their progressivism, proudly displaying their feminist literature like a peacock presenting its feathers during courtship rituals. If this species of man has caught your eye, then that means their public expressiveness is working.
This unique phenomenon has become known as performative masculinity. People all over the country are reporting sightings of these strange humans, and it’s important for individuals to spot some of their defining traits. Performative males can come in all shapes and sizes, but there are some fundamental attributes they share.
Thankfully, the University of Iowa campus provides a menagerie of performative male competitions, where people dress up, answer questions, and conduct short, improvised productions to see who can get the most in touch with their feminine side.
Recently, “Performative Male Contests,” displays of femininity and gusto originating on TikTok, have been popping up on college campuses nationwide. Participants bring props and show off for the cheering audience of mostly females.
The contests started on the East Coast before spreading to other well-known cities on the West Coast, such as San Francisco and Seattle. Once college students got wind of these viral gatherings, they began popping up at rapid speeds, mostly at prestigious schools, such as Yale and Columbia.
At the UI, two contests have occurred within the past month where the performative males of Iowa City flocked to the Pentacrest to compete for the highest honor: matcha and tote bags.
The Daily Iowan engaged in some boots-on-the-ground reporting at one of these local events to expose the inner workings of a performative male. While analyzing the contestants, we identified some key components of this unique personality.
Exaggerated feminism is the central element of any performative male.
When it was their turn to give a speech, some contestants poured their hearts out, exclaiming their frustration with period cramps or the gender pay gap. Some even brought tampons and pads and tossed them out to the women in the crowd like candy at a parade.
Delia O’Keefe, a second-year UI student and a contest judge, helped select the most performative men.
“That component of feminism is really important to me. You gotta put women first, above everything else,” O’Keefe said.
Realism was important to second-year Kat DeBauche and third-year Evan Jimmerson, who judged the first performative male contest on Sept. 10. They didn’t want to feel the contestants’ performance, creating a paradoxical challenge.
“For [the contestants], it’s all in the aesthetics,” DeBauche said. “Like, are all these different elements of the performative man matching up?”
Jimmerson agreed, adding these men need to act convincingly showy and pompous, even if not portraying some of the typical elements of a performative man, something most performatively masculine people are already doing.
“They’ve gotta be, like, really pretentious. They’ve gotta be convincing. They can’t look fake. They don’t have to have the traditional elements of a man, but they have to be cohesive,” Jimmerson said.
During the actual competition, the performative males were asked several questions to prove they were worthy of receiving the title. This included questions regarding a woman’s menstrual cycle, how to comfort women when they are crying or having a bad day, if Marie Antoinette deserved what happened to her, and even the contestants’ favorite “therapy buzzword.”
All of their answers contributed to how they would ultimately be judged and who would be ranked as most performative of the males.
Additionally, the dedication to feminism was supported by the person’s sense of fashion.
For their physical attributes, this species of men follows a fairly strict dress code with several variations; they wear baggy jeans or jorts and pants with lots of pockets, a graphic tee or oversized sweater on top of a button-down, collared shirt. Although these outfits bring them much luck, the magic is in the accessories.
From the top down: these performative males may wear wire-rimmed circular glasses with a likeness to Harry Potter, proudly display a mustache, and be plugged into their wired earbuds, best for listening to artists such as Clairo and Mitski.
They feature carabiners hanging from oversized belt loops, upon which dangle keychains with nonsense phrases or witty quotes, such as one that second-year Skyler Kramer sported, which had “I’ll probably still lose these,” written on it, as well as the collectible plush toys known as Labubus.
The performative male almost always holds onto a canvas tote bag covered with pins displaying their love for women. One contestant proudly displayed pins featuring Hillary Clinton‘s ‘08 campaign and the university Democrats. They drink out of reusable water bottles with feminine imagery to appear more soulful and in touch with nature.
Many of these canvas tote bags also contained vinyl records, such as Beabadoobee, Laufey, and most importantly, Clairo. Most contestants also carried around books, such as “Fahrenheit 451,” “John Proctor is the Villain,” and anything written by Sylvia Plath. Notebooks were also a hot commodity, as many contestants wrote flowery poems that were read aloud to viewers.
In a flashy way, most of the poems included references to the intelligence and beauty of women. Similarly, many contestants gave shoutouts to important women in their lives, including one contestant’s single mother, one’s lesbian sister, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Many contestants also carried skateboards — some of which were truly performative as the user couldn’t ride them — and guitars, which were either used to perform songs for the audience or to look cool.
Some people describe the performative males as “posers” akin to old archetypes from the 1990s and early 2000s. In this case, these men aren’t trying to be cool for each other; they are trying to show off their nonchalant intellect and emotional availability to the large crowd of women forming a horse shoe around the competitors.
Despite the difference, the fundamentals of both archetypes are similar, as they depend on trying to be someone they’re not.
From a more psychological standpoint, some participants argued all gender is performative. The gender norms we all live with are not something we were born with.
“The environment dictates who I am, you know? I grew up with a very feminist mom, a lot of thrifting places, a lot of bisexuals, and a lot of performative men,” Kramer said.
Gender roles in our society could be traced back to our fundamental need as humans to be a part of a group, and in this, there is something to be admired about performative males. It takes a certain type of courage to purposefully act and dress against thousands of years of preconceived notions.
However, just because these contests are lighthearted and silly doesn’t mean they’re making fun of men who live the lifestyle. According to attendees, there’s nothing wrong with being in touch with your feminine side, even if it’s mostly a performance.
Event organizers said while performative males get a bad rap for being manipulative, the people putting on the act are as genuine and kind as anyone.
These contests have built a community for performative men, Kramer said. Jude Geerdes, who won the first performative male contest and was a judge for the second, and Kramer met each other by attending.
While these contests are trending online for people to laugh at, they can, in fact, create community — even if performative. Whether you view performative males as scheming manipulators or soulful feminist allies, now you, too, can navigate this new trend.
