By David Futrelle
Right-wingers really don’t like the idea of Pharrell Willians in a dress, huh?
Earlier this week, GQ magazine unveiled a special issue devoted to what it called the “new masculinity.” On the cover: pop music artiste Pharrell, wearing a gown, I guess, that looked vaguely like a sleeping bag for an octopus. Inside the magazine, Pharrell models an assortment of barely less-dramatic gender-bendy outfits and offers his thoughts on new models or masculinity in a long and rambling interview.
Naturally, the defenders of traditional masculinity were shocked and stunned. On Twitter, right-wing ideologues like Mike Cernovich and Paul Joseph Watson sniffed their disapproval. “The New Masculinity looks pretty gay,” former Gamergate grifter Ethan Ralph opined.
You’d think that Mr. Ralph would be more open to a challenge to old-fashioned toxic masculinity, given that one of the former editors for his website literally stabbed his father to death in a rage (allegedly) in the midst of an argument over online conspiracy theories.
Other commenters on Twitter were a bit blunter:
Meanwhile, assorted right-wing rags offered more extended, er, critiques of the issue. The American Conservative declared that GQ had “emasculate[d]” itself by rounding up, and listening to, an assortment of writers, activists, comedians and others who weren’t all straight white men. (The horror!)
Spectator USA denounced what it saw as
a bunch of pouting narcissists in ugly €1,000 jackets talking down to men who struggle to improve themselves and build and sustain their families is disgusting. Frankly, they can roll their issue up and perch atop it.
But perhaps the most panicked reaction of the bunch came from Brandon Morse of RedState.com, clearly upset that GQ was, as per his headline, “Overtly Celebrat[ing] the Feminization of Men.”
Really putting the “his” in “histrionic,” Morse began his piece by announcing that “[o]ne of the largest projects being undertaken by the regressive left is the elimination of men.”
Morse devoted much of his article to a defense of “true masculinity” against the evil spectacle of men wearing dresses or “just ditching being a man altogether to embrace transgenderism.” The centerpiece of his argument? Wolves.
[I]t’s not femininity that’s been keeping the literal and proverbial wolves in the hills for thousands of years. When evil begins carrying out its purposes, it’s not people like Pharrell showing up in dresses that put it down. It’s not the “new masculinity” that’s going to charge into battle to protect those it loves at the risk of its own life.
Huh. I hate to break it to Morse, but there aren’t a lot of manly dudes out there wrestling literal wolves to protect the ladyfolk. Indeed, as our old friend Wikipedia notes,
There are few historical records or modern cases of wolf attacks in North America. In the half-century up to 2002, there were eight fatal attacks in Europe and Russia, three in North America, and more than 200 in south Asia
And back here in reality the “proverbial wolves” that “true masculine” men are supposedly so nobly protecting women from are overwhelmingly … other “true masculine” men.
In many case there is no protection to be found. Roughly a third of all women worldwide have been the victims of sexual violence. 50,000 women are murdered worldwide by their intimate partners or family members – that is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, by the very men who are supposedly protecting them from “wolves.” (Both of these stats are from the United Nations.)
That’s a big part of why we’re talking about developing a new model of masculinity in the first place.
While the right-wing attacks on GQ’s “new masculinity” are both hysterical and incoherent, Pharrell may not exactly be the ideal poster boy for this particular cause. Sure, he makes a fine model for the various outfits the folks at GQ handed him. But his thoughts on the subject of masculinity – while well-intentioned — are a mixture of trite cliché and baffling new-age babble. Over the course of this gas giant of an interview, Pharell serves up thousands of words of free-associational babble that only occasionally comes to the point.
I think the truest definition of masculinity is the essence of you that understands and respects that which isn’t masculine. If you ask me, when we talk about masculinity, it’s also very racial, this conversation. Because the dominant force on this planet right now is the older straight white male. And there’s a particular portion of them that senses a tanning effect. They sense a feminizing effect. They sense a nonbinary effect when it comes to gender.
Other time he seems to be prothletizing for the Church of Our Lady of the Bleeding Obvious:
You know, America was “created by our Founding Fathers”—not our Founding Mothers or our Founding Mother and Father. Right?
In one telling passage, he tries to empathize with trans folks, but in the end brings the converstation back around to himself:
Because think about it. What is happening to a transgender person? What are they going through? They feel like their body is not connected to their spirit. And what kind of toxic environment do we live in that they have to justify how they feel? That must feel incredibly insane. That is spiritual warfare. So I wanted to be in the conversation.
Well, sure, dude. Be in the conversation. But maybe not the center of it? There are a lot of other people out there with far more interesting things to say than the guy who’s only just getting around to apologizing for “Blurred Lines.”
Pharrell could perhaps learn a thing or two from some of the diverse assortment of other voices featured elsewhere in the magazine – especially lesbian comedian Hannah Gadsby, who had a few pointed suggestions for the men in the room.
“Hello, the men,” she began.
Here’s a thought experiment: What if you, the men, looked to traditional feminine traits and tried incorporating them into your masculinity?
Women are always being encouraged to stir masculine traits into their feminine recipe. We are told to “be bolder!” “Speak up in meetings.” “Exaggerate your skills.” All that Lean In sort of crap. So perhaps it’s time for you, the men, to be more ladylike. How about you scale back on your confidence? How about you try not to act in every situation? What if you tried to refrain from sharing your opinions or co-opting other people’s ideas?
Sometimes the best way for a man to contribute to a discussion is to shut up and just listen for a while. Or, in the case of the folks at RedState and The American Conservative and the rest of the right-wing critics, to shut their traps forever.
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I don’t want to discourage Pharrell from pursuing his new masculinity, perish the thought, but does he really need to do so in a cross between an opera cloak, a puffer coat and a marquee?
Gaaaahhhh, there’s so much to unpack here. Where does one even start?
If the new masculinity is wearing a giant Snuggie made out of several down bedspreads, I have some questions.
(not really, I think that garment would look silly on anyone of any gender)
I don’t think even Billy Porter could make that look good.
Last week Pharrell Willians felt the “click”. He heard that weird thing that comes to people when the suddenly realize that they might be “a little bit racist” or “a little misogynist” to have those lyrics.
When that “click” comes to you, you’re faced with a big “WTAF”.
Things that have been dancing in front of your face for your entire life suddenly appear after you never realized that they were there. Racism, Misogyny, Indifference, Privilege.
The same thing happens when you live in countries that don’t speak your native language.
You think you have a grasp on it and then one day, out or nowhere, you realize that a word everyone around you has been using for 20 years is an insult and not a compliment.
I would like to congratulate Pharrell Williams for his eye-opening experience.
@Karalora:
When in doubt, powder heavily.
Hey, Manospherians! Ever seen the David Bowie album cover below? It dates from 1970. Men wearing dresses is nothing new. And if/when America collapses, blame Trump (and yourselves for voting for him) instead of Pharrell Williams.
No Founding Mothers?
“Remember the ladies….”
If we didn’t have more seats at the table, that wasn’t our fault.
Every time someone talks about redefining masculinity, we get the same new age talk which is good on paper, but then it keeps men at the center and then nothing actually changes. In theory, I support a new masculinity that is less toxic and more accepting of gender nonconformity. In practice, it seems to just be another way to steer the conversation back to “but what about the menz?” and put a few men in the spotlight.
Also, for me the term “new masculinity” is forever tainted by Roosh V’s “neomasculinity.”
Can we please lock up the gender police, i.e. banning those shits from being able to participate in any civic discourse for a period of time? I’m getting sick of them. It’s getting really ridiculous we’re coming (back) to this, when men with long hair in the 60s and 70s were getting shit on!
I don’t get the argument of “protecting women from the wolves”. First, the idea that women need protection against the wildlife that they, themselves couldn’t get, is rather absurd. A minimal cursory research on animal attacks show many modern women chasing off animals to protect themselves or others. That’s a modern women who has most likely never hunted or lived in the wild unlike their distent ancestors. It’s even worse when one consider the number times women had to defend themselves and other, especially their kids, from the most dangerous of all predator: a man, most likely her partner and the father of those children.
Then there is the basic admission that we should praise “real men” for basically being firemen-arsonist. Women need men to protect them from men thus men are very important and good.
Men can bring great things to women, but protection from threat shouldn’t be high on that list.
Who cares what that thing looks like, it would be awesome in the middle of a Minnesota winter. I’d even have room for a friend or two in there.
That is indeed a ridiculous outfit, but it’s not more ridiculous than a lot of the outlandish tat which wows fashion writers on the catwalk and is never seen outside a fashion show or magazine shoot. So it seems a bit unfair to dunk on him for that.
I have a coat that looks like it’s made of the same material as that dress.
There are only two items in that entire issue that look feminine. The Octopus dress and the pale blue jacket (which I quite like). Everything else he looks quite masculine in, and only a few things might be termed gender neutral (including the leopard patterned long coat that, I admit, makes me think of pimp stereotypes. Blame TV.) If not for the headline, they would probably never have noticed.
The first thing I thought when I saw that outfit was “corn pyramid”.
FWIW I like the outfit, and I fully support the right of individuals of any gender to wear it. Not sure I’d want to since it looks a bit cumbersome, but if anyone else does, I won’t stop them.
Oh. I would’ve thought these uber-mensch would’ve thought what I thought when I first saw the picture…
Pharrel was going camping and was going to build the tent from the inside out…
On another note, it looks like the MRA’s aren’t hiding their white supremacy inklings any longer:
https://promalecollective.wordpress.com/2019/10/18/anti-white-racism-like-all-other-forms-of-racism-is-anti-male/
(why do these MRA’s hate hipsters so much, is it because they aren’t traditionally masculine enough?)
Not related to this specific article but I have an idea:
In the “comment policy” there’s a rule that mras basically can’t post, or at the very least no hate speech type of posts.
Furtelle used to allow them to post here, under the reason (paraphrasing), “to spread awareness of the misogyny and hate itself”. He since has taken that away, thinking it’s not worth making the community toxic.
I recommend an alternate solution. Have only ONE thread/article/place here where the MRAs/Racists/whatever are allowed to say pretty much anything they want as long as it isn’t illegal such as giving death threats. All of it would be quarantined in that one place. This way, people here would see what they are really like, without them affecting this community here at large.
I thought “real men” weren’t supposed to be concerned with fashion, let alone require fainting couches to cope with it. If only they didn’t shun pearls, they could clutch them.
@caketastydelish
The thing is, I doubt they would stumble across it. Generally, we get drive by commenters who post some random crap in the comments of a post that they found, then stay in that post’s comments or disappear forever. Over all I would say it’s better to just not let these people comment unless they’re going to abide by the same rules as everyone else. The comments policy is lax enough that we still get some trolls to play with, like Jim and Sack.
Lainy: I have a sleeping bag made from that stuff, as well as a vest. They are *so comfy*. A dress of it would be like a mobile sleeping bag. I think I’m saying I want it.
For what it’s worth I rather like that gown as a less cruel version of opulent fur coats. If you need something to wear for a dramatic flounce this is it. Thankfully I don’t do dramatic flouncing because I’d boil to death under all that down.
caketastydelish: what you’re describing is also known as The Internet. David curates the stream for us here. Why add room for comments that are so easily found elsewhere?
(PS: changing my email, so my icon will change, because the older email is kaput.)
@personalpest
I always say that there are two types of people in the world: the kind that would totally bone David Bowie if they had the opportunity, and liars.