The gender struggle enjoyed a shining moment when deity Emma Watson spoke before the United Nations Headquarters in New York City to promote the U.N. Women campaign HeforShe in September 2014.
This is going to seem unusual, but today we’re going to focus on the “he” side of the gender coin, because our men have been shortchanging ?themselves, as well.
A new documentary from Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the same humanitarian behind the documentary “Miss Representation” that examined media portrayals of women, is now turning the lens on the manifestations of ?masculinity as boys grow into men.
“The Mask You Live In” was made possible through a successful Kickstarter campaign, indicating there are plenty who support — and even demand — that more dialogue about masculinity take place.
The Editorial Board is grateful the parent of the highly successful and widely disseminated “Miss Representation” has now introduced some discourse about masculinity when it is so scarce.
Newsom aims to create a film that “sparks a national conversation around masculinity and ultimately creates a more balanced, equitable society for all.”
Even in academia, where ignorance is supposed to be kept at bay, the conversations about the destructive projections of masculinity are seriously lacking.
We did a little research on how IU is doing in this area, starting with the gender studies department. While masculinity doubtlessly comes up in many classes, there is only one class, G304 “Constructions of Masculinities,” that includes the magic male word in its course title.
If you want some other classes explicitly focusing on masculinity based on course title, search no more.
This is odd, considering the fact one of the purposes behind college is to prepare students for the real world. Yet it seems our universities are failing to equip our men to be more conscientious of the false model to which they are ?expected to adhere.
This is also ludicrous, considering so many world issues can be boiled down to the male compulsion to prove masculinity through aggressive assertions of power. The thing about having global power so strongly in the hands of men is that these authority structures are going to be as weakened by the need to assert dominance as the men who run them.
Of course, the understanding has long been that most sexual and physical crimes toward women perpetrated by men are rooted in the need for power. However, it’s so much more than just boys and men acting out in physical ?violence against women.
We’re letting our men off the hook by putting the focus entirely on society’s treatment of women. It’s this same mentality that makes women ?responsible for being survivors of rape.
Let’s talk about starting a HeforHe and stopping violence toward other men based in sexuality, belief, class and race that are senselessly contorted with ?gender codes.
Let’s talk about starting a ?HeforHimself. A boy in late adolescence is seven times more likely to die by his own hand compared to a girl the same age. These extreme physical acts are interpreted in the minds of these moribund men as the epitome of masculine expression: total mastery of the self when one feels otherwise ?powerless.
It’s no longer excusable to say, “it’s just boys being boys.” In actuality, it’s future men being conditioned to behave violently, ultimately to themselves, but still with devastating collateral damage.
