One that always annoyed me is when it is around the holidays, when stores advertise gifts for men. They always assume a guy is into toilet humor, beer humor, assuming they’re a lumberjack who needs to survive out in the wilderness, are into bbq-ing all of the time so gotta have those available all year around for some reason.
Even when I used to have identified myself as a guy, I never once fit into any of those traits. Just because guys grow beards, doesn’t always mean they’re chopping wood somewhere and always wearing plaid.
I recently became aware of the “performative male” stereotype. Basically, if you’re a guy who doesn’t dress the way most men dress and you like to read books in public, you’re just “performing” in order to attract women.
I think it’s the whole anti-intellectualism aspect of the stereotype that irks me the most (it being shameful somehow for a guy to read).
In some cases Tik-Tokers are filming guys just sitting alone at like a Starbucks reading a book, bothering nobody, and acting like they caught a predator.
It reminds me of that old Bill Hicks anecdote where he’s at a diner in the deep south reading a book, and some dude exclaims “looks we got a reader!” as if it were something peculiar.
Here’s a good critique of it if you’re OOTL https://youtube.com/watch?v=b3jIgdbVjr4
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