GRAYSON PERRY

Typical Man in a Dress Tour

2 November 2016

The following snippets are a selection of thoughts which I scribbled in the dark during Grayson Perry’s 90 minute exploration of masculinity. The lecture was a MANifesto on what masculinity means to Perry in the 21^st century.

'Women hold up half the sky'

Mao Zedong

Women Hold Up Half the Sky identifies one of the central moral challenges of the 21st century – full equality for the world’s women. What chance for a man?

Masculinity is in crisis. Men are growing beards and the Hipster trend is a cliché. Who are the major role models for men in the 21^st century? Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and ISIS.  Therefore what is masculinity?

1.Masculinity is learnt. Parents, school, the media all reinforce the male gender in a nurture against nature format.

Alice Miller – the rise of the Nazi due to a strict childcare regime

See her book from Rage to Courage (Norton 2009).

Instead of a Hegemonic leader man uses his teddy bear as the subservient to his dominant.

2. Power of Dominance

Examples of this male dominance include: The Death Star

High rise architecture – huge erections/ structures which dominate the skyline

Men in suits all looking the same.

The Twin ideal. Are men fearful to appear different?

'Normal is the perfect aspiration for the unsuccessful'.

Karl Jung

3.The Male Performance is fluid as it is learnt over time eg. Pink for girls, Blue for boys.

4. Men are redundant

They cant use tools, they don’t need to use tools due to technology.

Men have become SKEUOMORPHIC.

SKEUOMORPH an object or feature which imitates the design of a similar artefact made from another material.

An object that used to be functional and is now decorative, like nipples on men. Men used to need muscles to for daily hunter gathering but now they are only used at the gym.

5. Masculinity – we can change.

Male increase in suicide and mental health conditions – men bypass their life feelings and emotions and have become ‘retrosexual’ and addicted to the male stereotypes of the past.

It is OK to share your feelings, it is OK to cry, it is OK to wear a dress, it is OK to hate DIY, it is OK to stay home and care for your children and be bad at home improvements and fighting.

#masculinityis

It is not necessary to treat men like a Japanese general – to keep fighting even when the war is over. 

Men need to be ‘talked down’ metaphorically because ‘Hey dudes! The war is over!!’ 
Grayson Perry

#femininityis

‘The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off’ 
Gloria Steiner.

In my opinion, the questions posed in this random collection of statements may be the antithesis of celebrating femininity. However, by recognising that males can be vulnerable and misunderstood beings trapped within a hairy backed, ‘Rambo-angst’ ridden, hipster hell following the herd ‘fight club’ mentality, reinforces the premis that with or without a womb we are all mammals and have the same basic rights – respect, liberty, security and hope.