Melissa Roush
Rosalez/Eng 101
2/8/05
A New Man
It was sweltering hot day in mid-august. I’d just spent seven hours of my precious
Saturday working at a bagel joint where I had to be sickeningly nice to every stuck up
executive who couldn’t unglue the cell phone from his ear long enough to order a turkey
sandwich. Being the amazing girlfriend that I am, I snuck my boyfriend Jeremy a free lunch
to bring him after my shift. Arriving at his house with aching feet and a sore back, I collapsed
on his couch in hopes of receiving a nice, relaxing massage. My wishes were immediately
shot down when my knight in shining armor proceeded to resume his video game playing
while inhaling his complimentary lunch. Where’s the sensitivity here? Where’s my
compassion and well deserved sympathy?
I must have pondered this incident (and, sadly, many others like it) a million times
over. Here I was: not only taking on the role of the working woman, but still making sure that
my precious boyfriend had his stomach full. Something must be wrong here. What is it that
was causing my man, and surely many others, to act in such a brute, insensitive,
unsympathetic way? There must be a deviation from this norm out there somewhere;
someone who isn’t afraid to act in a mannerly, caring fashion. Someone who will rub your
feet after a long day (even he if must ignore his intense disliking of feet), someone who
doesn’t keep one eye on the television during conversation, or someone who generally makes
a girl feel important and appreciated. I’d like nothing more than to have a man—or a whole
army of them for that matter—that acted more like this. More androgynous.
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Men are expected to be manly: aggressive, powerful, strong, insensitive, and macho.
Manly men don’t show compassion and they certainly don’t shed tears. Yet not every man
can fill his masculine shoes. And should he want to? Is this super hero, all American man
really the only type of man that should exist? Enter: the androgynous man. In Noel Perrin’s
article entitled “The Androgynous Man,” he makes it clear that he thinks of himself as far
from the manly man. He defends himself throughout the piece, giving point by point
examples of certain—perhaps more feminine—characteristics that he has. He explains that it
is okay for a man to get warm fuzzies in the presence of children, have a secret love of
kissing kittens, or not know a thing about what is under the hood of his car. Perrin even
readily admits that when it comes to household maintenance he’s “had the aid of a volume
called ‘Home Repairs Any Woman Can Do’…” (158). Aha! Here is a man who is not afraid!
Someone that feels free to express his emotions, no matter what they may be. Someone who
you can relate to and one that will certainly not take advantage of you. The androgynous man
seems to be the better companion. What kind of woman wouldn’t crave this? A man that will
show her the kind of warm, empathetic attention that is often left out of a relationship.
This is exactly what author Amy Gross believes. In her article, “The Appeal of the
Androgynous Man,” she gives her own view of how the stereotypical male differs from the
androgynous man, and supports her argument that this man is one that could fulfill the wishes
of a woman more appropriately. Gross talks of the androgynous man as more sensitive, more
creative, and one that undoubtedly respects a woman. She belittles the “all-man man,” (as she
calls it) by saying that these are the type of men to watch football, “tell dirty jokes featuring
broads or chicks” (160), and are foolish in comparison with the androgynous man. She
argues that the all-man man thinks of steak and whiskey as nutritional and wouldn’t step foot
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inside a grocery store unless “the little woman is away visiting her mother with the kids, or is
in the hospital having a kid, or there is no little woman” (160). I must admit, Gross made me
laugh. I’m almost sure that most girls have had an encounter with a man like this, as I did
with my video game guru.
Relatively in the beginning of both articles, the authors made absolutely sure that the
reader was aware of the exact definition of androgynous (showing both male and female
characteristics). “Now the first thing I want you to know about the androgynous man is that
he is neither effeminate nor hermaphroditic,” Gross writes (160). Perrin also includes this
point, saying that being androgynous “doesn’t mean we’re gay, or low in the appropriate
hormones…” (156). I frankly found this amusing. Is our culture really that unforgiving to the
idea of showing cross gender characteristics that both authors felt it necessary to include this
disclaimer? This just shows how stuck our society is in the thinking that there should be girly
girls and manly men. Gross also comments that the average male “…must keep a constant
guard against anything even vaguely feminine (i.e. “sissy”) rising up in him. It must be a
terrible strain” (161). Apparently it is. From the stares on the street that a man might get for
wearing pants just a little too tight, to being coined the “metro sexual,” or even displaying the
color pink, our society seems to be literally terrified of straying from the norms. These
“rules” have been imbedded into every man’s mind since he was five years old.
This makes me wonder if I’ve found the answer to my initial question: why is there so
much emphasis on being the manly man? Could it be that they are afraid of doing anything
un-manly? Perrin comments that stereotypical men are “too busy trying to copy the he-men
ever to realize that men, like women, come in a wide variety of acceptable types. Why this
frantic imitation?” (157). Because they’re scared. Sure I suppose it could be considered
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“feminine” for your man to do the wash, make the dinner, or clean up the house out of the
kindness of his heart. But I can guarantee that no woman would respond to these wonderful
gestures by assuming that her man has suddenly turned gay or irrevocably womanly. Get
over yourself boys—lose the macho ego that’s been attached to you. Being almost certain
that I am not generalizing here, women like this! They enjoy being appreciated, as hard of a
concept that this is to grasp. I promise you that if Jeremy were to have surprised me with a
nice meal that hot August day after work, he would have gone down as the best boyfriend
ever for at least a week.
The moral of the story? Grow up. It saddens me to think that all of these men are
trapped in this hypothetical macho cage. The androgynous man clearly exists, and I earnestly
wish that there were more of them to go around, for women’s sake and men’s. It would
please me to think that the macho men of this world could be brave enough to break that
stereotype—perhaps it would make them happier. If only they could escape from these
football-playing, insensitive, women bashing stigmas, perhaps something great could arise.
Maybe they’d feel more free to express who they really are, deep down inside. And hell, it’d
sure make the girls happier, right?
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