Toxic Masculinity vs. The Gender Fluid Movement

Throughout centuries the fashion industry has been shaped and reshaped to follow the ruthless and ever-changing trends placed upon fashion followers. Long before the rise of ambiguity amongst gender specific clothing, there had been, and still is, a tyranny of socially constructed ideologies against the fluidity of men and women’s clothing. In the 1940s, major clothing companies began to dictate the color coordination between girls and boys clothing: pink for girls, blue for boys. Smithsonian Magazine stated, “the baby boomers were raised in gender-specific clothing. Boys dressed like their fathers, girls like their mothers.” This not only led to a society bound by gender-based guidelines, but completely tore the fashion industry into two separate categories: men and women, with no in between. The long lasting effects this had on society negatively impacted the psychological makeup of both genders for years to come. Specifically, men obtained a strict masculinity stereotype to uphold in order to appeal to the general public, especially in the limelight of the fashion industry. 

While more recently women have been able to fight against stereotypes, enter into a world of crushed clichés and rise to hold higher power positions in society, men and women are still bound by guidelines of behavior and style. The need for men to adhere to the conventional behaviors of being dominant, self-reliant, and sexually promiscuous, in turn, creates a society full of depressed, violent, and self abusive men. According to the American Psychological Association, “traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.” The fast fashion industry has stuck to these stereotypes and separated men’s clothing from women’s by making them less feminine and advertised men’s clothing through models engaging in “masculine” activities, such as skateboarding or playing sports. This only adds to the sexist belief that men and women are defined, not only by the activities they partake in, but the clothes they choose to wear. 

On the other hand, high-end fashion has more recently experimented with, and even highly praised, the more gender fluid designs. Male celebrities have opened up about being more confident in what would traditionally be “women's clothing,” and designers from major magazines, including Vogue, Glamour and GQ, have all acknowledged the start of the movement. Along with many others, Vogue designer Alejandro Gomez Paloma has been known to “gleefully drive into the oncoming traffic of conventional gender norms in dress.” Celebrities have also greatly impacted this upcoming trend by absolutely rocking feminine clothing choices like blouses, skirts, and even heels. The “most influential man in fashion” according to Lyst’s Year in Fashion Index, Timothee Chalamet, breaks boundaries between masculinity and femininity by often wearing slim, silky, and floral pieces that would normally not be tailored for a 24-year-old man in this generation. Widely known artist, Harry Styles has also openly commented on his, some say, “questionable attire,” and responded with, “In terms of how I wanna dress... I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool.” Styles also acknowledges that once you become more comfortable with yourself, the process of breaking out of the comfortable, gender binary style becomes much easier. Not only applying to clothing specifically, but skin care and makeup as well, which are considered to be traditionally more feminine, have been spreading to reach both ends of the gender spectrum. According to a study by the National Purchase Diary, nearly 40% of adults aged 18-22 have shown interest in gender-neutral beauty products and male-targeted skin-care product sales have jumped 7% in the past year. 

Toxic masculinity, in many societies, greatly hinders the blurring of gender binaries and can inhibit men from being accepting of not only each other, but themselves. Clothing should not define a man’s masculinity or sexuality but should be used as an expressive outlet for style and creativity. The sooner men can break out of the idealistic view that people can’t delve into certain fashion trends just because they are conceptualized as being more “feminine,” the sooner the negative effects from years of social suppression can be reversed. Not only would the mental health of men increase, but society as a whole would benefit from the acceptance and support of all gender fluid fashion vogues. 

Strike Out, 

Writer: Zoe Norman 

Boca Raton

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