Beril starts it's
new commercial campaign, talking about masculinity, saying "Beril
presents "Manhood isn't words" with Captin Reda, and her
team. Head to the nearest Cafe and face them",with a picture of a
muscled, sharp featured woman, with aggressive looks in her eyes.
Brings the question of
how masculinity is being defined by the Egyptian society, or at least
a great part of it, which can be known by analyzing this drink
commercial, which is built on pure stereotyping.
In my country, manhood
is the supreme, it prevails over womanhood, for that manhood presents
courage, vigilantism, honor and responsibility. On the other side,
womanhood represents birth production, sex, shame and maternity.
Man has to be vigilant,
controlling and possessing the leadership needed to have causticity
over all female members of his family. If these weren't the status
of Egyptian manhood, we wouldn't have found a leading company
producing drinks using it as a commercial campaign.
With a large mustache
under the icon of big woman, the commercial says that the three
competitions of manhood are “Chili pepper, Liver and Hand
Wrestling”. Yes, bearing to eat large amount of chili peppers, or
hundreds of liver sandwiches, or to win a wrestling match are all
aspects of genuine and authentic manhood, which the west knows
nothing of!
When I was in my early
years of childhood, I remember my father to be complaining
aggressively every now and then about my incapability of fighting
bullies at school or at the street, occasionally calling me a
“woman”, not sissy, simply “woman”.
During the high school,
it seemed to be important that male students should constantly make
sure to represent themselves as alpha males as much as they could,
those days were just continuous battles of masculinities, based on
the social stereotyping and patriarchal values. If you wouldn't date
some girl, smoke hash or got your pants to cover your underwear, then
you should seriously question your gender status – that was the
high school slogan of manhood among students.
If you want to be a
real man according to my country's social rules you shouldn't only
obey those rules which are constantly developed into worse version in
time, you should also be a contributing member to establish this
stereotyping rules for the future generations.
When you are the man of
the family, you should give your children a good image about manhood
everyday, perhaps by asking their mother to remain home, unemployed
to raise the kids, for that's what god created her for, or by using
your masculine authority to involve violence, verbal or physical into
your discussion, or by questioning your sons, are they men enough, or
they need instructions to be more violent, more vigilant, and more
man.
How Egyptian men look
into every female as a sex object, regardless of how many layers
she's wearing. I tend to think of sexual harassment in Egypt as a
masculinity test itself, Sexual harassment is an activity should be
done when present in groups of men, where the battle of testosterone
starts to prove the masculinity of the participants, and sometimes to
dispel the doubts that the person is not man enough. Which explains
why male homosexuals tend to be part of the social masculinity tests,
to feel more belonging to their community, to sustain the social
cover, and to keep the suspicions away using their perfectly shaped
masculine.
“Straight acting
looking for the same, no sissy boys” - You would seem to be reading
this line a lot, or hearing it coming from many homosexual mouths,
even within the communities describing themselves as open minded
individuals. Straight acting means not wearing colorful outfits,
possessing the ability to create a masculine conversation when it
comes to the tone of voice, and usage of words. Regardless of what
you do in bed, language here seem to be taking a priority on the top
ten list of “How to be an Egyptian man”. Having a deep voice,
with some occasionally violent words coming out from the mouth, talking
about women, gym or anything related to the size of your penis are
always the best choices. Touching your penis whenever a woman is
detected in your sight is considered important for your masculinity,
of course.
Eventually, unlike many
people, I don't blame Beril company, being in a capitalistic world,
companies try to sell stuff to people according the people morals,
life styles and values, it seems like the stereotyping masculinity is
a main part of our lives. It's the the argument, the insult and the
adjective. Defining what a person should do, with interference into
the smallest details of his daily life according to the organ
existing between the hips is becoming a culture, promoted day by day
in Egypt.