Harry Styles Walks Sophie

Lindner

Assoon as we’re born we get told what colors we should like, what games we should play with, and most of all how to behave according to our gender. Basically, as soon as we open our eyes we are brand-marked as our gender and with it comes our societal behavior; thanks to the glorious gender reveals. Girls do pink. Boys do blue. Girls be quiet. Boys be dominant. Girls be emotional. Boys don’t cry. Girls wear dresses. Boys never wear dresses. What happens when someone doesn’t apply their lifestyles to these schemes? As a boy you are told you are weak and queer. As if that would be a bad thing.

Harry Styles is THE music pop star right now. He is collecting his awards as he does his Gucci suits. His top single “As it was” is still, after more then 15 weeks, on No.1 in the charts. He was known as the long hair guy from One Direction, but during his solo career he managed to make himself one of the most popular singer of all times. He is also known for his gender fluidity in how he dresses, such as painting his fingernails with iconic yellow smiley faces for his album promotion shoot. Styles, who now owns his nail polish company called Pleasing, said, “Me seeing a flower or a wallpaper or something and thinking, ‘Oh, I wanna put that on my nails’.” Obviously, since he is a man he is considered to be weak and feminine.

In December 2020, Styles became the first male person to be on the cover of Vogue. He stunned in a blue laced Gucci dress. This raised a worldwide debate on what is considered to be masculine, and why Harry posing in a dress is not it. A video of the political commentator, Candace Owens, made its rounds on the internet as she was referring to Styles’ cover and said “bring back manly men.” This sparked even more discussion as she was implying that men are weak if they wear “feminine clothing,” which is called toxic masculinity.

Toxic masculinity is relevant in today’s society. You might think the world has bigger problems than men wanting to wear dresses, too, but here we are demanding men to be strong, powerful, and most of all manly. Toxic masculinity is generally defined as the stereotypical behavior expected from men put on by society, but it is actually harmful for them. For example, it is expected that boys and men act powerful and strong. Society puts pressure on them to not show weakness at any point such as crying or showing emotions at all. Typical phrases that young boys hear while growing up are “men don’t cry”; “man up”; “toughen up”. This can led to severe mental health issues later in life, such as men not wanting to seek help when needed. Additionally, as already mentioned, men are also pressured into wearing masculine clothes. The question obviously is what is considered to be masculine and feminine, but we won’t go there now. Simply put, men and dresses don’t work according to our 21th century mindset, or rather the 1950s.

Harry Styles challenges and fights toxic masculinity. He