Men Are Turning Into Ken Dolls

By Trisha Gura, Huffington Post. Posted May 14, 2009.

This pressure paradox creates difficulties for today's men. On the one hand, they face new expectations from women who are now achieving financial independence and are seeking attractive and sensitive, rather than rich and stoic, partners. On the other hand, men also must face their buddies, who may label sensitivity and careful grooming as homosexuality.

Nowhere else is male-to-male homophobia more visible than in American high schools, where young men are still searching for their identities. In high school, the line between stereotypical heterosexual and homosexual behavior is rigid and cannot be crossed. To illustrate this dynamic, Pascoe recounts an anecdote from River High School, located in California. Because male students were so worried about appearing to care about their looks, none would change their clothes after autoshop class, even though they were greasy from working with car parts. In high school, nonchalance rules.

It rules elsewhere, too. Middle-aged men going gray still want to look young and sexy. But they don't want to use hair dye for fear of seeming like they care about looking sexy. To reconcile their dilemma, these men turn to products like "Touch of Gray"' hair dye. The concept is to achieve sexiness in age -- salt and pepper hair without too much salt or pepper.

And how do guys talk about this dilemma?

They don't. They rationalize, keep secrets, and fib. If a man gets his hair trimmed at a hair salon, he certainly doesn't tell his buddies where he's going. Cuts are done at barbershops or no-frills places like "Supercuts," not a salon. If he carefully picks out an outfit each morning, he "will do it on his own" and pretend he threw on random clothes, according to Serer. And if someone does find out about his grooming habits, he may use the ultimate rationalization -- the hair gel or the coordinated outfit was all to "get the girl" or the job. Unlike women, who can compare eyebrow waxes, makeup brands, and exercise regimens with each other, men cloak their body concerns in secrecy.

I'm not advocating an increased acceptance of body obsessions for men. We have seen the ramifications of pervasive appearance anxieties in women through the explosion of eating disorders and deflated self-image -- clearly the pressure to primp does more harm than good. But while we should not reproduce the worries of women in the male population, we can at least learn from how women deal with these issues. They talk with other women at work, at home, and in public. They write books and articles in protest. They do not suffer in silence. Our men can do the same -- they are stronger than secrecy. If only we could get them out of the closet.

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