Let ‘performative males’ be – gender has always been a performance and our need for authenticity is bad for us

By Alexander Stoffel, Lecturer in International Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Authenticity, everyone’s looking for it, yet it seems nowhere to be found. From the political arena to pop culture to relationships, our obsessive search for authenticity is a symptom of its absence.

We have many terms to describe insincerity and inauthenticity in the age of social media. There’s virtue signalling, which is presenting yourself as aligning with an opinion, cause or social justice movement in order to look good while not really caring about it. There’s also queerbaiting,…

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