If you walked past the Otter Student Union (OSU) the evening of Thursday, Sept. 18 and thought to yourself, “Why am I surrounded by guys with tote bags holding books and matcha?” chances are you were walking through the first ever CSUMB Performative Male Contest.
However, a lot of people might still be wondering, “What is a performative male?”
“I think a performative male is kind of a caricature of a stereotypical guy who is aiming to ultimately get with women. It’s something that I think is very much seen a lot in today’s society of, ‘If I start thinking like her, maybe she’ll start to think of me as a romantic relationship,’ despite it not being their true selves,” said contestant and first-year engineering major Robert Winley.
Contest attendee and first year liberal studies major Tegan Knowles said some of the aspects of a so-called performative male are that, “He pretends to read feminist literature and he knows maybe three chords on the guitar, and he drinks matcha, but he doesn’t probably really like it.”
The troupe aims to poke fun at people, primarily males, who often pretend to be interested in things that their female love interests enjoy in order to appear more appealing to them, hence the adjective “performative.” The birth of this newfound stereotype has led to numerous “Performative Male Contests” being held by students across college campuses, and last Thursday, CSUMB got a slice of the fun.
More than 200 students filled up the cement steps in front of the OSU as they sat ready to watch the 19 contest participants strut with tote bags, matcha cups and feminist literature books in hand, eager to see which contestant looked and acted the most “performative.” Though the contest title was “Performative Male Contest,” contestants of all genders were able to participate.
The contestants stood in a line and were handed a megaphone one-by-one by event organizer and fourth-year sociology major Ashley Perea, who asked questions to each contestant, but if their looks and attitudes were not ‘performative’ enough to win over the audiences’ cheers, the contestant was disqualified.
“I honestly thought that there was going to be like 20 people and that there was gonna be like, five participants, and that was gonna be the crowd…just the audience itself was just crazy to me,” said Perea.
The contest was full of gags and jokes all in the name of “performative” fun, from contestants pulling out entire guitars or indie record vinyls from their tote bags, to participant and first-year marine science major Kingston Ward throwing packaged tampons to the women of the audience. Each judge selected one contestant from the non-disqualified bunch to bring into the finals. At the end of the night, Ward took home the title of the most performative male, winning a feminist literature book and a pickle plushie provided by Perea.
Photos by Daisy Sanchez