Natural Gender Roles in J. Michael Fay’s “In the Land of the Surfing Hippos”

Naturalist J. Michael Fay distinguishes clearly between males and females in his article "In the Land of the Surfing Hippos." There are natural courses for both women and men, and gender roles are not merely social standards but related directly to biological sex. Males and Females are treated as separate species, and the male species patently emerges as the dominant one. Fay grants the majority of males virility and strength, while most of the females are softer in character. Males as a whole, not just exclusively humans, embody this stereotypical masculine image, as this very height of manly prowess is hyperbolized in nearly every aspect. On the other end of the spectrum, females adopt an intensely maternal role. It is not that the text emphasizes necessarily chauvinist values, but rather, focuses on a natural disparity between the two genders. Fay does not discriminate between human societal norms and a naturalist view, but seems to mesh these together. Instead of placing societal gender role outside of biology, he implies that these characteristics are inherent qualities.

There is a blurred line between nature and humans, and gender traits seem universal across this border. Of the many animals Fay lists, it is no coincidence that he grants a feminine pronoun to only one, while the remainder is steadfastly male. Fay "see[s] a hippo's tracks" (63) and seeks to "find him" (64), passes "the resident goliath heron… where he stands" (64), notices "a lunker male mudskipper" (65), and "spie[s] a mustached guenon… with a bright white bar across his upper lip" (66). These animals epitomize masculinity and Fay describes them as "enormous" (64), "daunting" (65), and "massive" (66). He hyperbolizes the very manliness of the creatures, and their characteristics serve to further this idea of heightened machismo. Even the species on which he focuses possess names like the "goliath heron" (64) and the "mustached guenon" (66), emphasizing bodily prowess and uniquely male physical characteristics. The text humanizes the animals, personifying them into stereotypically masculine figures. Just as the "amazing amphibious fish have gruesome fights for territory" (65), Basil "bec[omes] militant" (70) when he witnesses Le Pêcheur poaching the shores of his nation. Fay is careful to name the tree thickets as "mangroves," thereby implying the link between both mankind and nature, and the dominance of the male species as a whole (64). The mangroves are "big" and "impenetrable," carrying with it the same masculine diction with which the text creates this sense of machismo (64). These mangroves, however, are "hideous - or maybe wondrous," and the juxtaposition of these descriptions introduces the idea of a masculine paradox (64). Heightened machismo enforces ideas of strength and power, yet it also lacks any softness with which to limit or balance this hyper masculinity. This void is inevitably meant to be fulfilled by the stereotypically feminine characters, of which there are few in the text.

Females epitomize an exactly opposing role to the aforementioned hyper machismo embraced by males. From the very beginning of the text, Fay establishes this intensely maternal character. The very first sentence addresses his mother, as he has to reassure her and tell her not to "worry, Ma" because he is "OK" (63). He fails to mention a father figure, and only writes to his mother in this colloquial speech in reference to his safety. Ironically, he then proceeds to continue into an article of literary merit. This seems to set a pattern for a lack of female intelligence throughout the remainder of the text. Like his silent mother, females are rarely granted a speaking role, excepting the screaming Jane who is in mortal peril. Women like "Gisele Mabiala, the only female in the crew," are pointedly lone outliers, not necessarily regarded with distaste, but described rather briefly (77). It is important to note though that Gisele is the only female within the text who is not a mother. Unlike male creatures across the spectrum, females are rarely mentioned in mass quantities as lists. The text does not completely ignore the only animal he specifically names as female however, but describes her in vivid detail much greater than that spent on the males. The leatherback is intensely personified, to the extent "she struck [Fay] not as a turtle at all but as a person dressed up in a turtle costume" (74). Yet, unlike the humanly masculine diction employed for describing the many male creatures, the turtle is "eerie" (74) and appears as an "apparition" (72). While Fay is "giggling" (67) as he runs from the hippo, the turtle puts him in "a trancelike state" (72) as he "watche[s] spellbound" (73). The text clearly glorifies the turtle as a vastly more foreign creature, but not necessarily inhuman. In her childbirth, she has "teary eyes" as she "gasps for more air," and it becomes patently evident that this mystery is enshrouded not in her world as a turtle, but as a female (74). Fay does not understand this gentler, feminine world, and has a difficult time reconciling these supposed disparities.

Fay emerges as a clear hero in the text, but in this he does not promote merely himself as an individual but what the text infers to be the inherent relationship between men and women. The male creatures are compared to "jumbo jets" (64) and "battleships" (66), while the leatherback is a "finely polished marble sculpture" (74). Essentially, men are created for battle, while women are meant to nurture. Fay crusades against what are basically dubbed the bad guys, as he "fetches the ladies" (67) from the hippo, relies upon his "secret weapon - the satellite phone" (69), and "use[s] the statistics as weapons of mass awareness" (76). In these allusions to classic super hero characteristics, he again employs this extreme hyperbole to emphasize the inherent existence of machismo. Simultaneously, this propels the females into a more submissive role, as Jane "shout[s]" "Go, go, go" to the "theme music of Jaws" and Fay "catapult[s] Malia up into the tree" (67). Additionally, the leatherback, unlike the virile male creatures, is "handicapped" in a "task that calls for all her strength and dexterity," characteristics with which the males are stereotyped (73). She suffers from "the loss" (73) of her "back right flipper" (73), as opposed to the male mudskipper, who "with a flip of the tail… was out of" (66) "the clutches of a predatory blue swimming crab" (65), thereby escaping death or injury. The text paints a portrait of the hyper masculine male as nearly invincible, and similarly, Fay also manages to avoid bodily harm. Meanwhile, the female is inevitably vulnerable, and susceptible to danger, as the turtle, who "disappear[s]… into" "a lonely" "home," patently absent of a protecting male presence. These series of hyperbolized descriptions are not depictions of reality, but rather, representative of the implications of biology on gender roles.

The polar images of the male and female characters are not an exact translation of the actual world, but are separated nicely into black and white. As evidenced through the mention of Gisele, the text clearly points to the existence of outliers to this stereotypical model. Yet, Gisele is precisely that, an outlier, an anomaly from the norm. She is a safety net that can protect against any sort of feminist gender analysis. Yet, it is important to note that females are not necessarily portrayed in a negative light. The hyper masculine males are indeed the heroes, but Fay notes the paradoxical imbalance of this extreme machismo. The emphasis is not on male dominance, but on the relationship between two such extreme gender identities. By connecting actual facets of nature to this human societal standard, a clear link between biological sex and gender emerges.