In my last column, I wrote about the changing role of women in society. Suddenly, I
realized that nobody is expressing their ideas on the changing roles of men, which are
changing in parallel with women's roles. I realized this a little late - maybe because I
am a female or maybe because society has put this change in second place. But the roles of
both men and women are changing, as are their interactions with one another.
In my article about women I used Can Dündar's articles as a reference point and again I
will refer to a Dündar article. When I read his article "Bir Überseksüelin
İsyanı," I had a small evil laugh, which underlines that the power of women has
increased over men. In his article Can Dündar started with the ideas of a futurist,
Marian Salzman. I suggest you Google her and read about her predictions for 2007, which
are quite interesting.
Can Dündar writes about Salzman's yearly predictions as she comments on women's
expectations of men. Dündar primarily considers the changes started by Salzman's trend of
'metro sexuals' and questions the adaptation to the new process of 'ubersexuality.' You
probably recognize these two terms but as a reminder: Metro sexual men are men who look
after themselves; have manicures and go to salons for haircuts, buy clothes as fashion
dictates and who are helpful towards women. The word 'ubersexuality' as I understand from
the article, stands for men who are again, metro sexual, but their behaviors are more
protective towards women adding some masculinity to the equation. So while men try to
adapt to this new trend of the protective male, signs of masculinity like facial hair
appear. But if you look more closely at these trends, a desperate attempt to turn back to
the days when men protected their families and hunted for them, while women were in the
kitchen, can be observed.
I remember when 'metro sexuality' spread among men.
I started to see males who started to look after themselves. Their haircuts, clothes and
even their behaviors changed. In the shopping malls, more men's clothing shops opened, and
amazingly, men started to shop.
Although many men started
to pay attention to their grooming habits etc., labeling them as "metro sexual"
was an insult, because it implied they were losing their male power. The reason behind
this was probably that being concerned with one's own appearance is more associated with
being female. But as time passed, living with men who were taking care of themselves
became the norm. Now, Salzman is announcing that the new mode is coming: 'uber sexuality.'
Men have to look stronger, grow their mustaches…and know they are trying to adapt to
this new fashion.
But with each adaptation, men are loosing power according to the statistics. Men have
started to feel less powerful and with all this change in their lives, they feel insecure.
This feeling is of course not only because they look after themselves, but it is also that
they started to equalize their place with females. Before the role of the female in
society was to be beautiful, look after her family and raise good children for society.
And men had to work and bring money to home. But in present times all these duties have
become the responsibilities of both sexes. And with more responsibility man had lost his
control over the female. I think that this is not a bad thing as long as both members of
society can balance their power, responsibilities and be able to become helpful members of
society.
Sıla Türkü
Kural (EE/III)
turku@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
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