Looks Like We Made It

Wow, can you believe Barry Manilow is gay?  Oh, you can. Well, that seems to be the reaction: people aren't really surprised.  I was a bit surprised, since I would have thought that most gay celebrities are out now.  Could someone check The Closet, and let everyone else know it's safe to come out now.

But I'm a little disappointed that a lot of people have reacted to the news by saying that they always knew he was gay, or to ask why didn't he come out a long time ago, homosexuality has been accepted for decades, you know, Liberace and The Village People and them.

As for the idea that you knew it all along, I have to point out:

• There's a secretly-gay rumour for just about every male celebrity
• Have you seen the seventies? Even the really masculine guys had moustaches that would seem over-the-top at a Pride Parade today.

And for the people who think gay celebrities have always been accepted: Some of those folks are probably from that odd brand of bigotry that fervently denies that bigotry exists. But others seem to be really misremembering the past. Yes, you can point to gay artists of the 60's-80's, but a surprising number of them publicly denied their sexuality until more enlightened times. Liberace might seem like the most obviously gay man of all time, yet he claimed to be straight throughout his life.

The fact is that our society has had a strange attitude towards homosexuality for a while now, and there was a long period where we had kind of accepted that it didn't really hurt anyone, but we still held on to the general idea that it was wrong.  And that lead to a lot of celebrities who were stereotypically gay, but would never admit to it, fearing it would be career suicide.  And for a long time, they were probably right.

(Fun fact: The Village People weren't all gay.)

As if to underline our muddled views of sexuality, there's news that John Mayer has found a more masculine heart emoji. Specifically, he's using the heart from the playing card symbols, not the heart intended to symbolize love, which is more rounded. Certainly, it's not clear whether he was joking, but given the continued need people have to defend masculinity, I can't tell anymore.  It's one of the big mysteries of modern society: homosexuality is getting more and more widely accepted, yet men seem ever more fearful of appearing gay.  Just like there are fewer closeted celebrities, yet people are as quick as ever to speculate on who's secretly gay.

Ironically, by jumping to conclusions about people's sexual preference just based on their traits or interests, we're fuelling men's need to affirm their masculinity. Yes, I know, they should be accepting enough of others that they wouldn't mind being mistaken for gay.  But it's also putting a lot of pressure on them when they know that everyone will be quick to misrepresent their sexual preference the second they step outside of society's notions of heterosexual men. And it's all because people have this bizarre need to say "told you so" as soon as anyone comes out. So let's just stop the speculation and let people express their sexuality as they see fit.

Iron Jason

A few days ago, British writer & feminist Laurie Penny asked men on Twitter how they were adversely affected by gender roles.  That led to a lot of feed back from men who had a lot to say on the subject.  A lot of it seemed to revolve around the expectations to be aggressive, unsentimental, and play sports.

It's difficult to get discussion about men's problems.  Sure, the concept of "men have it easier overall, but they are treated unfairly in some ways." Is not exactly quantum physics.  But it is two ideas in one, and that's a bit too many for our sound-byte culture.  On the one hand, people will say that men have it easier, so they can't complain about anything. On the other, people will claim that men have problems, therefore they're the real victims.  Those simplistic views have a tendency to derail the discussion one way or the other.

So how would I answer the question of what problems gender roles cause for men?  I think most of it comes down to emotions.  In most areas of human activity, women are far more limited in the way they act.  There are very specific ways they're expected to look, hold life priorities, and take career paths.  The one area where the tables turn is with a person's emotional life.  Specifically, the fact that women are expected to have them, but men are expected to have none beyond anger.  As with our expectations of women, the expectations are both restrictive and unrealistic.

It's not really clear whether men are making progress in breaking out of gender roles.  In the media, there seems to be plenty of stereotyping of male characters - as I've said before, advertisers can't get enough of dumb, childish men.  And it's seemed to me that men who prefer traditional masculine attributes are reasserting that masculinity, as a reaction to the uncertainty over gender roles.  In the same way that women have had to find a compromise in which women are free to pursue their own lifestyle, but without shaming those that retain traditional roles, men are going to have to find a similar balance.