Athlete Culture and the Media

A Washington Post article highlights that Mississippi State has decided to continue valuing and promoting a toxic masculinity - the coach is dismissing physically aggressive video footage of an athlete against a woman and when the coach was asked about it, he mentioned that he was "thrilled" to have the young man joining the team. At first this might seem like the same old thing, but it's a little different: the tone of the article is quietly condemning, both of the coach's attitude and of the athlete's violent behavior. Is this how new definitions of masculinity will enter the mainstream? Will the new standard come quietly instead of by storm?

If so, I would be glad to welcome it in this way. What I know of personal growth has shown me that every time I try to fight for change, I get nowhere, or worse, and fast. From quitting smoking to working with depression and mental health, I have found that only through loving acceptance have I begun to have traction. Quiet, calm reflection works for this piece in the Post as it often does for us as individuals: as much as and only if we are willing to be honest about what we are doing and how it helps us, or separates us, from where we want to be.

#BeAMan

in Bosnia, a group formed to coach war-raised men different ways of being - can we start the #BeAMan club in the Roanoke Valley? How do we make such a club an invitation and not a condemnation?

Tough Guise

Wow. I watched the documentary Tough Guise, and it left me with so many thoughts, not the least of which is: Where has this movement been in the past seventeen years? I know that my friends and I talked about this back in 1990, (and I was mostly ridiculed, but that's what friends do), but I had no idea that there was a Real Voice out there, making noise and yet being ignored.

I'm really excited by the fact that we have an opportunity to start crafting a twenty-first century feminism, one which encourages all of us to step away from the narrative of competition and the dichotomy of dominance and submission, to interrupt the violence inherent in the hierarchy presented by the patriarchy and to embrace, nurture and share the path of cooperation. But this leads to a very real dilemma: How do we do that? How, when conditioning starts so early (I'm thinking of the images of the young boys flexing their muscles), do we avoid telling the men in our lives who and what they are supposed to be? How are we supportive of their journey to discover and possibly create from scratch an identity that accords with their inner selves, and what do we as their community members do while they are in flux on this journey?

The twentieth century model of manhood diminishes the spectrum through which men can experience the world, so it not surprising that when faced with an opportunity and encouragement to "be authentic," conditioned men might feel adrift, or possibly even insulted. Certainly the dominant culture doesn't want the parameters of masculinity to change, and society has reacted violently when it was threatened. I'm thinking most specifically of the case of Malcolm X, the leader of the Black Power movement who shifted his stance from one of violent disruption to peaceful cooperation and was gunned down for his new position.

If we no longer define success as a function of physical prowess, how do we define it, and how do we achieve it together?

I absolutely loved this documentary. The image of 70s Luke vs. 90s Luke will be with me forever. Nota Bene: though Katz used the words inconsistently, I think now is a good time to point out that "male" is not a noun and "man" is not an adjective. We have come a long way in the last couple decades as we get comfortable with the terminology of gender issues.

the danger and diminishment of the modern masculinity narrative

I found this quote to sum up my thinking on the danger and diminishment of the modern masculinity narrative:

Toxic masculinity aspires to toughness but is, in fact, an ideology of living in fear: The fear of ever seeming soft, tender, weak, or somehow less than manly. This insecurity is perhaps the most stalwart defining feature of toxic masculinity.

This illustrates quite handily the narrow path of fear, insecurity and self-doubt that we consign our boys to from an early age, and to which we demand our men conform. How often have we heard men say to boys “Chicks dig scars?” This is an awful narrative to imprint on boys, and an unfair one.

And thanks be to all the powers of the universe that someone finally said guns don’t actually stop violence:

The idea that a bunch of drunk people dancing around a nightclub are safer with loaded weapons on their bodies is clearly not coming from a rational place, but from a place of deep insecurity and gender weirdness that treats phallic symbols like they are magical totems.

While it’s easy and comfortable to sit in our First World Realities and poke holes at the rampant illogic of it all, what seems elusive and tricky is finding a way to interrupt the toxic narrative. The idea of the most kills continues to be a real driving factor for many of the spree shootings we have seen in the last twenty years. It has been expressly stated as an objective by shooters of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook. The disassociation required to see people as targets for kills in a game and not as people at all is disturbing to contemplate. And yet we must take this nauseating perspective not only as real, but one that our society imparts to everyone -- men and women, boys and girls, all races, colors and creeds -- that this is what it means to be a man. We reel at the death count, stagger at the thought of the loss of life, but it is our own society which is creating this competition for dominant virulence.