Ladies, please, Paul Stroili’s begging you–don’t call his house during “Monday Night Football.”
That’s when he vacuums.
Stroili, a Los Angeles-based actor, is a card-carrying member of that stereotype-breaking, gender role-blurring group dashing through the media lately: metrosexuals–cosmopolitan straight men unafraid to embrace qualities and pastimes traditionally associated with women. He’s a Dermalogica apricot facial scrub junkie. He knows ecru from eggshell. He cooks. He gives his wife fashion advice. And she loves every minute of it.
“We hang out in a way that wouldn’t be possible if he just sat down for three hours to watch Sunday afternoon baseball,” said Stroili’s wife, Monica Kaiser, a social sciences researcher. “It makes for a really neat friendship and love relationship–and I’m better dressed as a result.”
In every culture, defined roles for men and women exist. American social norms, for instance, have long dictated that men be aggressive, competitive, strong; women, emotional, sensitive, open. But in recent decades, it seems men have undergone a sort of “Timberlake-ification,” as journalist Kerry Howley put it in a recent online article.
There’s Neutrogena Men, Axe deodorant body spray, Maxim Magazine-brand hair color. Male plastic surgery is up. Wedding-obsessed Groomzillas reign on Oprah. Soccer heartthrob David Beckham sports nail polish and just this year, the Italian Association of House-Husbands formed to combat the image of machismo-fueled Italian men.
Women differ in their preferences for a man who embraces his feminine side. Flipping through Better Homes and Gardens may be cute; a subscription to Martha Stewart Living may not be. Crying during “Schindler’s List” may show compassion; sniffling through “Dawson’s Creek” may be a turn-off. So we asked women: Are you attracted to a man with a strong feminine side? How much is too much?
Chicagoan Lindsay Suthard was raised “thinking men were supposed to sit down and watch football; women are supposed to get their nails done.” Today, she doesn’t subscribe to such a stringent gender role dichotomy–but she has her limits. “Sure, I want him to be sensitive, but I also wouldn’t want him to be first in line for the newest chick-flick or to be the one saying, `Oh, my God, did you see what she’s wearing!?'”
Amanda Nelson of Chicago recalled a college infatuation with a popular frat boy. That is, until the day he jogged by and she saw the sun reflecting off his glistening … makeup.
“The kid was wearing foundation!” Nelson swears. Her crush ground to a halt. “In a relationship, I prefer the gender boundaries be a little more defined. I don’t want to fight over the mirror in the morning with my boyfriend.”
A balanced relationship
But having a “feminine” side need not translate so literally to wearing makeup or even scheduling monthly manicures–which many image-conscious, “manly” men do. It could simply mean the guy is comfortable demonstrating traditionally feminine traits, like a nurturing personality.
For Lisa Cruz, a San Antonio public relations account executive, having a husband who makes a mean lasagna and isn’t afraid to purchase a box of tampons makes for a nicely balanced relationship.
“It’s actually great to have a guy who loves to cook, can hold his own when discussing curtain choices and enjoys shopping for everything from clothes to power tools,” Cruz said of husband Michael. “But when he gets into a room with men and they start talking hunting, fishing, basketball, he has no clue what they’re talking about.”
Cruz loves her spouse’s openness and says his nature enriches their relationship. Plus, “I don’t ever have to worry about him coming home at 2 a.m. because he’s been out drinking beer, trying to pick up women at the bar,” she said. “He’s very family-oriented.”
But when did being family-oriented, emotionally responsive or kitchen-friendly come to be equated with femininity? The Chicago Tribune, in fact, has received angry letters over use of the term “mirl” (man-girl) from men upset with being called “girly” or having their sexual orientation questioned.
James O’Neil, a University of Connecticut family studies professor specializing in the psychology of men, said although society is evolving, there is still pressure on both sexes to buy into age-old gender stereotypes.
“On one hand, they want that stereotypical man who is not emotional and is strong,” O’Neil said. “But on other hand, women want a man who can deviate, because that makes the relationship more intimate and communicative.”
In fact, that Jekyll and Hyde attitude may be biologically based: Recent research has shown women tend to be more attracted to men with feminized faces (think Jude Law, Brad Pitt), associating them with honesty and parenting skill–except during ovulation, when their biological clocks prefer Schwarzenegger-like attributes associated with a greater likelihood of fertilization.
Ditch the gender roles
Rather than ascribing sensitivity and communication to females and rough-and-tumble behavior to males, O’Neil said it would be more progressive to ditch the caricatures and talk about the “human” product.
Take, for example, the Cruz marriage.
“It sounds like they have a flexible view of gender roles, without a lot of investment in stereotypes,” O’Neil said. “He’s able to cross over, she doesn’t think he’s less of a man because he likes to shop, and he doesn’t defeminize her because she likes football” (which she does).
For many women, the appeal of an “atypical” man grows as they themselves mature and become more aware of the damage inflicted by restrictive gender norms. And the damage is real: “If you tell a man that by expressing emotion, he’s feminine, and he doesn’t want to be characterized that way … he becomes devalued,” O’Neil said. “Restrictive emotionality can lead to serious problems such as depression, anxiety and marital dissatisfaction.”
That’s why Cruz is happy to see her husband’s qualities rubbing off on their two sons; their oldest is already extremely affectionate. “We plan to enroll him in T-ball at age 3, but we also hope he enjoys things like swimming, gymnastics, or even ballet if he wants to.”
Bottom line: Deciding whether you want a man from Mars, Venus, or somewhere in between is a personal decision. But, says Glenn Good, past president of the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, be prepared for tradeoffs no matter whom you choose.
“A traditional guy may have some trouble relating to others and people will consider him an insensitive oaf,” Good said. “If [he’s] metrosexual, traditional people will say he is insufficiently manly and needs testosterone shots.” The task, he said, lies in finding a healthy balance that works for you.
For Stroili, finding that perfect gender equilibrium has been a journey. He acknowledges he began honing his feminine side as a tactic to woo the opposite sex. Unfortunately, reading “The Feminine Mystique” one too many times left his feminine side “way overdeveloped. It scared women off romantically and they’d end up romancing the football player.”
But his self-education was not for naught. Besides a healthy marriage, Stroili has parlayed his experience into a one-man touring comedy production. It’s called “Straight Up With a Twist” and is set to come to Chicago in November.
