Gender Contamination & Harry Styles

BY EMMA KYLE

Have you ever wondered why so many boys and men had such jaded views toward the boy band, One Direction, while girls and women loved them? It wasn’t because they lacked talent, but because of something called gender contamination — the notion that men want nothing to do with things that women like or that are seemingly feminine.

WHAT IS GENDER CONTAMINATION?

Jill J. Avery of the Harvard Business school is credited with coining the term “gender contamination” which was originally attributed to the Porsche brand. The phenomenon itself is actually a marketing term and is used to describe the idea that men are less drawn to products that are associated with women. Though brands are shifting away from strictly gendered products, there are still instances where we continue to see this in our popular culture today.

As Carmen Nobel at the Harvard Business School puts it, imagine the principle of gender contamination as real-life “cooties” — the irrational fear of spreading a fake illness by way of close proximity to the opposite gender. It most often spreads from women to men and presents “symptoms” in the form of a direct threat of emasculation. It’s the false belief that engaging in behaviors or liking something that society deems as feminine will strip a man of his power, therefore threatening his masculinity.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

Though the brand is working to evolve away from genderspecific messaging, Gillette has historically been known to market their pink razors as Gillette for Women and their black ones as Gillette for Men. This sort of gender-normative marketing, which has been common in thousands of consumer brands, is thought of as just one reason for the emergence of the gender contamination phenomenon.

Another instance where we see this theme is with Diet Coke. Originally, Diet Coke in the silver can was popular among women but not men, even though men collectively had a need for a diet soft drink at the time. Coca Cola then developed and marketed a new product in a sleek, black can — Coke Zero. Coke Zero is essentially Diet Coke but in a more masculine design, which also omits one key word: diet. These two nuanced changes were enough to boost sales among men because it removed the feminine association with the product.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF GENDER CONTAMINATION?

When products are marketed specifically for women, men generally have a hard time rationalizing their perception of the product as just a “thing” versus a “thing for women.” This, however, is not necessarily a conscious aversion. Deeply rooted fear of emasculation, by virtue of adopting a product for women, can create cognitive dissonance for male consumers — an inconsistency between thoughts and actions. This doesn’t come as a surprise either, considering our society is still heavily influenced by codes of gender. Dr. Bethany Doane, a post-doctoral teaching fellow in the department of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Penn State explained how codes of gender are strongly tied to the power structures of our society.

“In a patriarchal society, one in which men tend to hold more cultural and economic power, there is this hierarchy that puts the things that are coded as masculine above those that are coded as feminine. So in other words, we value strength over vulnerability or competition over collaboration.”

Additionally, she shared how the principles of the phenomenon speak to the ways in which women’s preferences are often devalued in society, at large.

“When we talk about masculinity as being ‘fragile,’ it’s because it’s more invested in that hierarchy and the rules that uphold it. So a woman acting tough to succeed doesn’t threaten that hierarchy of masculinity over femininity; it kind of upholds it. Whereas the reverse threatens that structure.”

BUT WHAT DOES HARRY HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

In the realm of pop culture, Harry Styles acts as a modern-day gender contamination crusader. He’s one of only a handful of entertainers who are publicly fighting against normative gender codes. Most notably, he appeared in a long, Gucci dress on the December 2019 cover of Vogue. The look sparked immense controversy, but he remained unphased by the backlash surrounding his (glamourous) metaphorical middle finger to the patriarchy.

Beyond this, Styles’ career was arguably made successful by teenage girls — much like the Beatles. Rather than trying to bury his boy band roots, Styles embraced them, aiming only to gain an older, more mature audience as his career evolved.

“When we see how silly it is to be threatened by a behavior that’s arbitrarily associated as masculine or feminine, breaking the rules is the way to disrupt them, and that’s ultimately a good thing.” Doane says.

So how can we reconcile activism like Harry Styles with the realities of a society that is still heavily influenced by normative gender codes? Disrupt them.