Man’s Vanity

Key words: sexual and gender, aesthetics of beauty, sexual orientation, unfolding stories

Gender, aesthetics of beauty and sexual orientation are always a controversial topic in certain communities and politics. For example, why male always should behave in ways our society defines as manhood, manliness and so-call ‘masculinization’ ? Why they have to diminish or even hide their requirements for protection, affection and comfort? Further, according to a latest news title: ’A4 waists, iPhone legs’, some Chinese woman embed extraordinary criterions for the view of beauty. Lots young Chinese girl are using the size of A4 paper and mobile phones to record their stature in order to exam how paper-thin they are (Ben Westcott, 2016). While the pressure for women to conform to an ideation of beauty and skinny figure pervades in our social constructions of femininity, social constructions of masculine also constantly demand that men be quite manly, thoughtful, and hunk. There is another case which was talked about the issue of ‘be a man’. In an early period in the year of 1999, a film ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ revealed the truth behind the cultural construct of masculinity in the United States. From the moment of birth, boys are taught to cry less than girls, comforted less and so on. Overtime, it causes a sort of spiritual death. To quote a french philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, “Gender is a cultural construct than nature.” (1986: 35) Therefore, honestly speaking, behaving both in these absolute masculine and feminine ways are potentially destructive.

Nowadays, the issue of anti-essentialist view of sex and gender are heightening to emphasis. At present, the view and expression of sex and gender indicates much possibilities of change, redefinition, and even subversive performance (Cohen,1997). However, based on this controversial issue, Judith Butler ever mentioned that the relationship between sex, gender and sexuality could get separate in three distinctive levels: Firstly, it is related to individual biology. Secondly, it is about the behavior way in masculine or feminine. And then is sexual orientation towards men or women (1988). In modern society, there are more and more obvious phenomenon to challenge the people how understand and respond to gender. For instance, what is a boy should do when he is told to be a man? How to behavior for a girl or a boy? However, my project here is more focus on the behavior way in masculine or feminine. And my aim is to re conceptualize or re-definite the identities that are ‘man’s’ to people through the way of story narrative. To emphasis that aesthetics of beauty is not a shy and shame thing any longer for male to do. Here is a small ‘performance’ for story telling about five males who work in the different design working classes. And used the object of ‘Man’s Vanity’ to present their distinctive aesthetics of beauty which includes skin care products, makeup products, accessories, life style, and working spaces.

From both masculinity and femininity standpoint, my main purpose of this project for invoking people to rethink what is an absolute view of gender:

The term ‘Queerness’ normally is used to describe a person with strange habit or their sexual attraction to persons of the same sax. At the same time, it was often rooted and tied in a relation of anti-normative people who was identified with marginal groups. Cathy Cohen asserted that ‘confrontation of normalizing power through an intensification of and emphasis on anti-normative ways of inhabiting space (1997:34).’ For example, a man who loves to behave for a girl is merely due to his aesthetic of beauty which is not related to heterogeneous or homogeneous power. But in the early, based on the common structural necessity of gender, males behave things like a girl might be considered as ‘Queerness’ and have to create solidarity across many forms of oppression. However, in recent years, beauty performance for male such as makeup and skincare no longer is a potential movement to challenge the people responding to gender and self-identity.

#sexualandgender #sexualorientation #aestheticsofbeauty #stories