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Jack Grealish and the cult of feminine men
Like everyone else I’m enjoying the boozy antics of Man City’s Jack Grealish. He’s spent the last few days partying following Man City’s victory in the Champions League, behaving exactly how a 27-year-old who earns £15 million a year should behave. He’s having a ball and who can blame him?
But there’s a difference between Grealish and the rowdier footballers of not so long ago – Wayne Rooney, say, or Gazza. It’s the accessories: Grealish keeps photographing himself in a pearl necklace. He and his Man City teammates have been seen clutching man bags that look suspiciously like handbags. Indeed, in 2021, Grealish was photographed wearing a £1500 Christian Dior ‘crossbody man-bag’ which looks like something a gaudy aunt might want. After winning the FA Cup he got a bit precious over his Gucci kit:
Put simply, he is dressing like a woman and getting lots of attention for it. He and other footballers, patron saints of lad culture, haves embraced the hottest trend of the 21st century – femininity.
There’s nothing new in this, of course – from courtiers to dandies to David Beckham, men in the public eye have long been inclined to peacock by wearing things usually worn by the opposite sex.
But Grealish’s sartorial androgyny speaks to a broader emasculating trend in the 2020s. We live in a time where gender fluidity is all the rage and sexual ‘norms’ are regarded as suspicious.
Last year, style magazines declared that, for men, tall, dark and handsome was out and the ‘short king spring’ was in. The internet fawned over the short kings – meaning men under 5 ft 8 – in the public eye, Tom Holland (not that Tom Holland), Joe Jonas and Daniel Kaluuya all fall into the category.
Short king spring was a symptom of a wider trend spearheaded by Gen Z who celebrate men who possess traits that are traditionally associated with women. For Gen Z, kindness is king: sensitivity, empathy and openness are prized above all.
Women in the workplace have long been rewarded for embodying male traits. In 2023 the real winners are men who embrace femininity
Hyper masculinity is suddenly outdated. The cast of Love Island look like a throwback to the Eighties when David Hasselhoff was the epitome of everything a man should be: sexy, strong and stoic. But the new generation of Hollywood actors and musicians are much softer and more effeminate: Timothée Chalamet, for instance, or Andrew Garfield.
Male sports stars tend to be big and strong, but as Grealish shows that doesn’t stop them joining in. Cristiano Ronaldo is often seen with a large diamond engagement ring on his middle finger.
This cult of feminine men now rules because men are desperate to reject any hint of ‘toxic masculinity’. In Grealish’s case, it could be that wearing a pearl necklace is a useful shield against allegations that, by spending several days boozing around Europe, he is indulging in stereotypically boorish male behaviour. Then again, it’s probably a mistake to assume that the endearing Grealish, who famously didn’t know what an encyclopaedia was, has any idea what he is doing. Still, consciously or unconsciously, he’s on to something.
Women in the workplace have long been rewarded for embodying male traits. In 2023 the real winners are men who embrace femininity. The top selling male musicians in the UK pride themselves on embracing feminine traits: take Harry Styles who became the first man to appear solo on the cover of Vogue. He graced the cover in a dress. The actor/director and former girlfriend of Styles, Olivia Wilde, praised his stylistic choices as exemplifying someone ‘truly devoid of any traces of toxic masculinity – [it] is indicative of his generation and therefore the future of the world’. High praise indeed for a bloke in a lacey tulle number.
There is a sense of rebellion and fearlessness that comes with gender bending and pushing the boundaries of what is expected. But how is risqué is it really, when so many are doing it?
David Bowie, one of the most important pop musicians of all time, pushed conventional gender boundaries fifty years ago. Back then, in the 1970s and 1980s, that was conspicuously provocative and counter-cultural. Today, cross-dressing is so commonplace as to be banal. You know it’s lost its edge when even footballers are doing it.
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