The Effeminization of the American Male Real Talk With Amiri Podcast

Real Talk With Amiri

The advertisement shown below gives insight into the feminization of Chinese men through work, for it is due to the man’s career that he is drawn with make-up and pictured in an ad revolving around laundry, a ‘feminine’ job, to begin with.
Chinese men in America during the 19th and 20th centuries were unable to escape the social stigma of being effeminate regardless of where they turned. They were effectively trapped in a never-ending loop of effeminization. Chinese men were discriminated against at the border for their “effeminate” bodies. For those who were able to make it through this barrier, they were oftentimes forced into feminine jobs, unable to appear as a man in working society. Unable to perform patriarchy with a lack of a present wife and family, they again did not have access to the traditional American man’s ways of achieving manhood. They were further seen as feminine. Ideas perpetuated by Chinese men leading “feminine lives”, i.e. no families or masculine jobs, further incited immigration officials to perform discriminatory practices at the border. Chinese men were not given an opportunity to prove the effeminate stereotype otherwise.57
For as long as America has been a country, the straight white American man has been king of the hill. But as society changes and culture evolves, the ground beneath that hill is growing shaky. Economically, physically and emotionally, many American men are fighting to maintain a foothold.

"What it means to be a man today is different than what it meant 20 years ago," says James O'Neil, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut who studies gender role conflict. "There's a paradigm shift occurring in our country regarding what it means to be masculine, and many men have had difficulty adjusting to that transition."

Effeminate behaviors are behaviors that men exhibit that are more stereotypical female in nature. This could include more overt displays of emotion and a deeper focus on one’s personal appearance to name just a few. To display or exhibit effeminate behaviors does not make an individual less masculine.

However, often times these effeminate behaviors are the consequence of perceiving oneself as an emasculated male. Believing that one is ‘not man enough’ (emasculated male) is often not a conscious process.

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