The Androgynous Male

Richard's Article

Noel Perrin, in “The Androgynous Male,” describes his self-image in terms of how he does not meet traditional sex-role expectations for men in society. He remembered in his childhood, he was trying to suppress and repress his emotions and pretended to be strong and masculine. As he grows up, he felt confident about himself instead of feeling inferior. He explains a lot of benefits and freedoms for being a spiritually androgynous and he feels sad that many of us never discover that there is a range of choices open for us. There are a large number of men living in the world who are too busy copying the he-men. Those men fail to find out men and women come in a wide variety of acceptable types. Perrin gave two reasons for this frantic imitation. First, he believes those men are just envious of the he-man’s unconscious ease. The other reason is that those men are in the fear of finding that there may be something wrong with them deep down. To avoid drawing surprised and even suspicious reactions from others, they spend their lives acting out the role that the he-man naturally lives. In my opinion, I think there is no solid line between macho and feminismo. Androgynous, to me, is the ability to feel comfort and joy in doing things that are traditionally the domain of the opposite gender. Only those who lack confidence in themselves will seek to imitate others. If we always follow all the rules of what we should be, then our psychological condition may be under great pressure. We should see the occasional weakness as a kind of fulfillment. The fact that we keep struggling to repress inner feeling will lessen our ability to know, honor and respect ourselves. Actually, an androgynous man is knowledgeable, honorable, and respectful of all things that shape his life.

Perrin describes his reactions to a magazine quiz which indicated that he was “barely masculine” – 1.2 on a scale of 1 to 10. Further examination and introspection convinces Perrin not only of the superficial dynamics of the quiz, but that there is a large class of men and women who are essentially androgynous. That doesn’t mean they are gay, or low in the appropriate hormones, or uncomfortable performing the jobs traditionally assigned their sexes. In “The Androgynous Man,” Perrin gave us several examples of what the freedom of the androgynous man is to define the androgynous male. In his own case of being baby sitter, he got an opportunity to see a child eat and sew patches on the knees of his daughter. He had a lot of pleasure nurturing his daughter. Also, because his daughter had gone to London, he had to look after the cat for his daughter. It makes him know how silky cat fur is when one night he simply felt like kissing the cat. After that, he started to feel free to kiss cats. Moreover, he read the book entitled “Home Repairs Any Woman Can Do” which he never read when he was a youth due to the fear of becoming transvestite. In addition, he never mind crying in the public now when seeing an emotional scene in a play. I think Perrin might describe the androgynous female as the one who drives the bus or being a taxi driver. They go out to work but not bear the responsibility of childcare, and household chores. They can act more independent if the situation calls for independence and they might have great ambitious toward their career. Also, thinking logically will be another factor to make them be considered as Androgynous females.