Read this article…
Everytime i see comments like these, i hesitate to swallow it whole, fish head, bones, tail and all. We all have theories. And you can draw linkages with just about everything- if you remember the movie “a beautiful mind”, you can appreciate what i am saying.
Let’s put it this way: what if i tell you that one of the main reasons why people feel less comfortable around effeminate men is because they do not come into contact with them frequently? Unfamiliarity breeds contempt. Ignorance breeds fear, which is closely linked to distrust and dislike.
In the service industry, we see butches galore. They are ubiquitous! They are the ones serving you coffee at TCC (The Coffee Connoisseur), Starbucks… etc. We see them at restaurants like Swensens, Cafe Cartel, Sakae Sushi… etc. They are eye-catching- you cannot miss them; you know they are masculine lesbians.
As people interact with these folks e.g. asking for yet another mug of warm water, they come to the conclusion: butches are harmless. They don’t hurt me. They don’t give me hostile stares. They don’t act like they own my world. They are not a threat.
But effeminate men… now that’s different.
I hardly see effeminate men. Sure, i come across a few in hair-styling salons. And we all heard of famous effeminate men who are acting, who are in design and fashion… but knowing of their existence is a far cry from interacting with these people.
Everyone knows that transsexuals exist. But are they comfortable with them? People don’t know how to conduct themselves around them. When you are in doubt, you are under a measure of duress, which translates to an uncomfortable state- You wouldn’t like them very much. Truth is: people don’t respond very well to new things. This is a fact that has been bore out by research over and over, whether in design or in interpersonal settings.
The second major reason i can think of: gay men are associated with a lot more negative publicity. Think AIDS- plenty of talk in the papers. For some odd reason, gay men are always dragged into the picture when the media talks about sexual diseases. Alright, so gay men are one of the first infected (then again, you will never know for sure, would you?), so we need to pay tribute to our “founders”. In spite of the notable proportion of straight/heterosexual men who are passing the buck on from their little rendezvous in Batam, gay men continued to be in the limelight.
Given such media bias, am i so very not surprised that people feel more comfortable with butches than gay men. Note: i am sure that effeminate men and gay men fair about the same in terms of popularity votes with heterosexuals- as long as they know the straight acting gay men are gay.
Lastly, i think it to be untrue that people are more forgiving towards women who “go up” the hierarchy of attributes. That depends really! My girlfriend gets not-very-friendly stares all the time.
I think we need to distinguish between internal and external attributes. Internally, strong attributes (or what they call “masculine”), historically inseparable from the male gender role, are now valued in all people e.g. assertiveness, leadership. [On another note, soft attributes (or what they call "feminine"), are also valued today in everyone e.g. sensitivity and tact.] It’s perfectly okay to be strong inside, as long as on the outside, you fit in with gender norms on the outside (and thus give people less certainly about their world!).
I think uncertainty is one of the biggest factor in seeing this difference.
Share your thoughts! If you have read research from somewhere or if you have a compelling theory/explanation, i would be extremely pleased to hear from you.
