top of page
Search
  • Writer's pictureAdeline Palmquist

'Manly men": A necessity or a stereotype?

Updated: Sep 2, 2021

Harry Styles made history in the December issue of Vogue as the first male to appear solo on the magazine's cover.

Styles graced the cover wearing a white satin dress with black lace detailing. The release of the cover caused a massive uproar in the media; mostly positive support. However, some far-right conservatives had their own opinions.

Author - better known for her political commentating- Candace Owens had some things to share on Twitter, one of the many platforms she uses to express her strong opinions. On Nov. 14 Owens said of the Vogue cover, "There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the West, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. This is an outright attack. Bring back manly men."

Owens received significant backlash for the post; but her argument did have some support.

My argument is: supporting Owens in this claim would be supporting the idea that gender is a construct, not biology. However, people with opinions similar to Owens usually have negative opinions regarding transgender communities, where their argument is that gender is simply biology and nothing more. But then... which is it? A construct or biology? Because, in my opinion, it must be one or the other. If wearing a dress strips men of their 'manliness', do their male reproductive organs count for nothing? Are women born wearing a dress? How and when did we decide manliness was subjected to the clothes one wears? When you look back on history, skirts and dress-like garments were traditional for both men and women. So whom, may I ask, is Styles attacking? If stereotypical clothing defines one's manliness or womanliness, then isn't Owens contradicting herself?

Because, stereotypically, woman don't wear suits, do they? Personally, I do not feel attacked by this picture of Owens in a suit, nor do I feel it makes her less feminine. So what is the difference between Harry Styles in a dress and Candace Owens in a suit? Styles is on the cover of Vogue, and Owens is on the cover of Fox News.













Photo by Gage Skidmore: Candace Owens speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.


51 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Goodbye high school

I would like to start this off by saying I wish I pushed myself to write more blog posts over the course of this year. Homework, studying, sports, and work usually took up all my brain power most of t

Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page