Recently, a friend joined me for coffee at a local Italian bakery. Unsure of what she wanted, she decided to try something she had never had before: a caffé bedouin.
“That’s a man’s drink,” the barista informed us. When he saw our perplexed looks, he again asserted, “That drink is for men. Can I make another recommendation?” She went with an iced chai latté.
He must have thought the threatening bitterness of espresso would overwhelm a young woman. I am sure his intention was to watch out for my friend’s delicate, feminine taste buds.
When I got home, I discussed the no-spresso experience with the electrician who stopped by my house. Though not an authority on the subject, he recounted his own difficulties in ordering a drink. “I ordered a quad mocha with soy milk, and a woman down the counter muttered something, like, ‘Get any girlier?’” He justified to me, “I like soy. I have sensitivity to dairy. It’s not like I ordered it with whipped cream.”
Art student, Cheyenne Poole, also had a “genderized” drink order.
“Last summer, I was asked if I wanted a man's or a woman's size for my hot tea,” she said. “It’s projecting gender onto beverage choices.”
These accounts made me realize that my coffee incident earlier was not just sexist towards women—it was sexist towards men, as well.
The feminist debate about the perception of women has been raging for decades, but another social issue has yet to receive as much attention—the unreceptive response to contemporary masculinity. For centuries, society has displayed cookie-cutter images of masculinity, but this is our culture’s first decade in allowing men to decide their personal preferences without as much stigma (to be stay-at-home dads, to buy men’s beauty products, etc). However, these decisions still suffer backlash.
In the article, ‘Are Men What They Used To Be?’ Dr. Peggy Drexler, author and assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University and gender scholar at Stanford University, touches on this topic by asking, “Are men less masculine or more liberated?”
Men are encouraged to be whomever they want, but then they are scoffed at for not assuming their anticipated role.
The barista and woman at the coffee counter felt that those coffee orders needed a strict interpretation and categorization to gender. In their mind, men are supposed to be independent and tough, and a real independent and tough man wouldn’t want his taste buds to be pampered and coated with sugared coffee.
Is it safer for us to reinforce previous notions of manliness? At the root of it is a fear that America is becoming a less manly place.
Confining masculinity to set standards lets people assert greater control over each other with less effort. No individual evaluations of people have to be made (and certain young women are deprived of espresso).
As we transition from these historically held ideas, there is a divide between expectations of men and the reality of men.
Drexel theorizes, “While some wail over the declining state of manhood … there is also the very real possibility that men are evolving from swaggering through life in some cartoon interpretation of what men are supposed to be - to becoming more fully-formed human beings free to find out what they can be.”
Manhood is not suffering —it’s being redefined.
To answer Drexler’s original question, I believe a man can be masculine and liberated at the same time.
Hopefully, people will see that masculinity is inspiring, not binding. And hopefully, I can get a caffé bedouin when I want a caffé bedouin.
Reach the columnist at mgrichar@asu.edu
