How it Feels to Be in the Company of Men

What happens when you’re treated like a man everywhere you go?

“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”

-Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms

If genetics has endowed me with an advantage, then it’s the ability to travel throughout most of the world and “fit in.”

Being a man with the international norm of brown eyes, dark hair, an olive-skinned complexion, or one that shades quickly under the sun, and hovering around the global height average for men (which is 5’7”), I can walk around, like, 72%¹ of the world uninterrupted.

If you had to cast a more camouflaged version of globetrotting secret agent, you’d have better luck with the “secret” part if you chose me instead of a tall Brit to be 007—I’m just putting that out there.

Not that my anonymity is all that seamless when I travel. It’s just that even when someone registers me as a foreigner, I get the “make sense of that for me” question from locals. It’s some version of “But where are you from,” which is really a way of asking, “ you may not be from here, but you’re from a place that has short and dark people.” After telling locals that I’m Latino, this then leads Greek cab drivers or Cape Town barbers to say, “Ah, so, we’re brothers.”

It’s pretty lovely, honestly.

In 2010, right on the cusp of the Arab Spring, my ex and I spent a few weeks in Egypt. My first observations were on the gendered spaces throughout Cairo—men taking up real estate in most bazaars, cafes, and public spaces. At the same time, women were meant to populate select locales, often in groups or accompanied by a male family member or spouse. I’d spent time in places that felt similarly separated, but this was the first time I noticed how different I felt. People assumed I spoke Arabic, and men acknowledged me with respect and deference instead of my girlfriend.

And you know what? It felt gooooooooooood.

Have you ever been accepted by a group of other men? It’s incredible! You should really try it sometime.

It’s nice to be a man. I don’t even have to think about it.

Until I do.