On Saturday 25 October, the University of Birmingham held its first Performative Man contest, and we sure hope it’s the first of many.
Contests have been happening across UK university campuses with the term ‘performative male’ denoting someone who adopts an overly progressive and feminist personality in order to attract more women.
The contest saw nine ‘performative men’ compete for the title and took place by the infamous Red Stack.
Of course, The Birmingham Tab was present at the event ready to see who would be crowned UoB’s biggest performative male. We braved the chill to get all the goss at what was, arguably, the strangest event we have ever attended.
We had the absolute privilege of asking these men some hard-hitting questions, like:
What do you think of periods? Answers ranged from describing periods as “one of the most incredible things” to a series of expletives followed by, “it’s the bane of my existence!”
Their performativity peaked when feminist literature came up. A few had solid responses, but most faltered—one admitted, “I’m not that prepared.” Others brought only cookbooks “for the aesthetic,” without a single novel in sight.
Perhaps most pivotal, we asked the guys to describe women in one word, to which we got very sincere answers of “incredible”, “amazing”, and our personal favourite, “[each woman is], in her own right, a sparkling jewel”.
The competition was tense and comprised of five rounds: name a woman, guess the song, finish the lyric, a talent show round, and why the contestants believed they should win the coveted title.
Some highlights included watching as the men tackled one another to prove just how many Beebadoobee lyrics they knew (spoiler: not many, talk about performative), and a sudden death round where the contestants could only name a woman of color, Beyoncé was named twice (of course), and Simone Biles got the most excitement from the audience.
From Sylvia Plath to Taylor Swift, matcha to period pads, there was no limit to the stunts being played by the ‘performative men’ all vying to be top dog.
However, the talent show was definitely the highlight of the event with performers sitting on a skateboard playing at you (as confirmed by the first contestant). The audience enjoyed a rendition of ‘Mad World’ as well as an original song called Period from a contestant with medals for fighting and ending periods, the legitimacy of this is to be confirmed.
Reasons for wanting to win the title included “having to deal with guys like these”, “posing for the most performative friend I have”, “it’s not a performance, it’s my lifestyle”, and “I love to sit in the background and support women”.
Eventually, a winner was declared in Mattan, pictured in the I Love Taylor Swift shirt, who won the pride of being the most performative man at UoB as well as a free victory bike ride around Aston Webb. What a reputation to gain in your first-year.
