Androgyny is being accepted increasingly more, at least among millennials, but it seems to me that our acceptance is conditional.
This especially came to my attention when I was at a concert last week and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
I go to a lot of concerts, so I’m aware that it’s normal to hear criticism of the opening act, but this was different.
The second the female artist came on stage my ears were filled with slurs and harsh criticisms from the crowd, all having to do with her exterior, not musical ability.
The opener for this concert was a rapper, who presented herself in masculine manner.
“Is that a boy or a girl?”, “Is she on drugs?” and “What the hell is that?” were just a few of the kinder, less profane things I heard.
When the main act was playing, I realized that the lead singer acted no different. He’s just a heterosexual male that breaks a lot of gender rules, just like the female rapper. He sometimes wears lipstick and dances in a feminine manner, but people don’t denigrate him for it, instead they praise him.
So why is the reaction so different? I believe that there is a double-standard.
I feel that a large portion of my generation accepts gender fluidity and nowadays, it tends to be shameful when people are not. So this leads me to wonder if we tend to favor gay or bisexual men and transwomen.
From my experience, gay men tend to be loved and praised among an accepting crowd. There’s a different attitude in more progressive settings when a man participates in feminine acts, like wearing lipstick or jamming to Britney spears.
Transwomen are also praised throughout Hollywood. We see the media gushing about RuPaul’s Drag Race and Caitlyn Jenner, using terms like ‘queen’ and attaching characteristics such as, ‘fun and sassy’.
I have a hard time finding examples of praised, famous lesbians, who like some of these gay men, reject their gender ideals. The popular, praised lesbians we tend to see throughout media are the ones who we can easily identify as female.
Why is this? Are beauty expectations that pigheaded, that even when a female has a surgical procedure to identify as a man, we still want them to fit our socially constructed idea of that.
It seems that it’s easier for people to accept a male who has embraced a non-masculine lifestyle than it is for a female to embrace a non-feminine lifestyle.
This brings me back to the female rapper that received such a negative reaction for her appearance. Just her choosing to look and act the way she felt, was seen as deviant and offensive to the crowd.
I believe that the reason for this, is because it makes people uncomfortable. We like to do the same things and look the same way because then we feel like we can’t be wrong. So, when someone doesn’t care about conforming, us conformists feel the need to become defensive, as if someone’s difference is a threat to our own self-esteem.
So, can we just stop caring so much? Sadly that seems to be too heavy and simple of a request for our tediously complex egos.
When we feel the need to negatively comment on the appearance or impression a person has, we need to stop and ask ourselves why. Difference is good, not scary. It is what makes every individual special and desirable.
We all seek to truly be our authentic selves.
So stop getting mad at the people who actually do it, join them instead.
Hannah Hamlin
Reporter