MannyMUA
Written by Evan Kalvesmaki
A mascara wand lies, carelessly discarded on the bathroom counter. An open tube of lipstick stains the shimmering white porcelain, a small container of makeup wipes drying out a few inches to the left of the sink.
Now, tell me. Who’s bathroom do you think this is? Your sister’s? Your aunt’s? Your girlfriend’s?
A can of shaving cream, a facial razor and men’s deodorant lies carelessly thrown around the sink, unorganized, with stray hairs circling the drain.
Who does this bathroom belong to? Your brother? Your uncle? Your boyfriend?
What if I told you they belong to the same person?
Living in the year of 2016 in western society, we see that we’ve progressed in the last hundred years. Women received the right to vote, the idea of “separate but equal” no longer carries in a court of law, and LGBT+ citizens of the United States are able to join hands in marriage. Many of the poster children of social injustice have been abolished, and we’ve become a more accepting culture because of it. But this doesn’t mean we’ve completely forgotten our prejudices. There’s one nearly invisible, but certainly real intolerance still in our lives. Gender roles.
For those who may not know, let me give you a quick rundown as to what gender roles actually are. According to dictionary.com, gender roles are “the public image of being a particular gender that a person presents to others.” Basically meaning, gender roles are the expected roles each gender takes in our society. Men are the breadwinners, keep their hair short, can’t wear pink, and can’t wear makeup. Women are stay-at-home moms, must maintain luscious, long hair, can’t wear a pantsuit, and must wear makeup at all times to remain the beautiful trophywife you’re expected to be.
Sounds restrictive, doesn’t it?
Alright, so it’s story time. I’ve been listening to “Electra Heart” by Marina and the Diamonds on repeat recently. Marina wears a heart on her cheek on the cover of the album, and in a shoddy tribute, I pulled a heart-shaped sticker off a classmate’s sticker sheet and stuck it on my cheek. Another classmate asked me, with a confused, almost disgusted look, “Why are you wearing that?” I shrugged. His reply made me think quite a bit.
“You’re gonna get beat up, looking like that.”
At first, I wondered why. It was really harmless, it wasn’t anything to get worked up about. It wasn’t a political statement, it was just a harmless tribute to an album I appreciate.
But something came to me on the bus ride home from school that day. Something so simple as a man wearing the color pink, or showing any sort of feminine quality, even something as minuscule as a heart, is so incredibly harmful. An intense, thorough-bred masculinity in our society causes anyone who might feel that men can’t be anything other than stoic, hardcore robots, would feel personally attacked to see that one of their kind could possibly embrace their femininity. It’s fiercely political to see someone defy the set-in-stone rules we have to follow to remain true to what we were born with.
And this is a major problem.
Men should be able to paint their nails. Women should be able to live life as something other than a sex symbol. Men should be able to be the submissive. Women should be able to be the dominant. We shouldn’t have to adhere to these roles society deems us just because our ancestors have.
Makeup is gender neutral. Looking good doesn’t have a gender.
Clothes are gender neutral. Fashion doesn’t have a gender.
Colors are gender neutral. The way our eyes refract light does not have a gender.
You don’t need to conform to gender. Your existence doesn’t need to fit what society wants you to be.
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