Although the cases of school violence have dropped to a big round zero in the last month and a half, it remains a serious reality all over Canada. Forgive my joke but I feel it is appropriate considering the issues discussed in this final blog post are heavier than usual. Here is my insight on the subject.

The first thing I want to consider on the theme of violence in schools are all the articles in the series “School Violence” by CBC and the short movie by “marketplace” that accompanied them. Of course, they mainly targeted the school boards for not taking sufficient measures to stop the violence in their schools, failing to report lots of incidents, or even failing to do anything at all when faced with a case of school violence. Due to the lack of information and political knowledge, I cannot begin to explain nor even understand why such a thing happens. I found it interesting though, that one of the articles called “I thought he was dead […]” had a small statement where it said that students in Quebec reported the lowest incidence of experiencing violence at the hands of another student. And it got me thinking. Why?

When I was a student, it somehow happened that I changed a few high schools (due to family reasons) but it gave me the chance to see some of the measures that Quebec schools have put in place in order to stop, or lower, school violence. In one of my schools, there was a rule which was reinforced directly by the principle and was reminded to all the students at the beginning of the school year. The rule was that if you get in a fight with another student on school grounds, the parents of everyone involved would be charged with a fee and the police will be called immediately. I remember when they put that rule in place, they had send a survey to all the parents asking them if they approved of the rule. And I can say for a fact that the number of incidents lowered visibly. Another one of my schools separated the girls lockers from the boys lockers, they were on two different sides of the school, and they were heavily guarded at all times to make sure students don’t go to the opposite sex’s lockers. And this was due to a tragic incident that had happened some years ago: a girl got sexually assaulted by a group of students next to her locker. Back in the day, of course we weren’t happy the boys weren’t allowed in the girls lockers and vice versa because we couldn’t see our boyfriends. But now I am grateful that I went to schools that did everything possible to make sure we were safe.

Some schools are working hard on staying safe, and others are more preoccupied with their reputation. Whatever the case is, the reality is that school violence still exists. Studying masculinities has opened our eyes to a lot of issues men face every single day. Statistics like the ones presented in the CBC series mentioned previously, or in the documentary “The mask you live in” are scary. Realizing that 4 out of 10 boys have experienced violence at school, that more than 70% of students have reported violence by the hand of other students, that one in every 6 men has experienced unwanted sexual harassement or agression is hard. It is even harder trying to explain it, or even understand it. The studies presented to us in class reflect some of the aggressive nature of masculinity and perhaps where it comes from. Lots of modern men are taught from a young age never to cry, never to show weakness, to prove themselves physically and so on. Kilmartin and Smiler’s multiple chapters on masculinity and its different aspects all turn around the same subject. They all explain how men are oppressed to be competitive and strong and of course, this could explain why some men are violent, but I don’t think this is the entire explanation, it cannot be, and I don’t want to blame any man nor the struggles he has been through for the school violence happening around us. I think there is something else.

In this last paragraph I will provide my personal, a bit philosophical, opinion on the subject of school violence. I noticed that all the statistics they provided to us said that most students experience the most physical or sexual violence at the hands of other students between the grades 7 and 10. This is the time of a child’s life when their hormones are completely untameable and their brains and bodies are still developing. I have always thought there is a sadistic side of the human nature, and maybe this is the time when this side is, also, the most untameable. We often hear the phrase “acting like an animal” when someone is too violent physically or even verbally and I think that this is always part of the problem, no matter how much we try to contain it or ignore it. Earlier today, i asked a friend how he thinks we can stop or lower school violence, and he answered “we just can’t”.

It gives me pain to say these things, I am certainly not saying it is inevitable, but I am trying to take the attention off of masculinity. I don’t think masculinity should be blamed for, or associated with, violence. I don’t think we should blame our society for not doing enough to stop violence, or for somehow raising violent men or women. This is my reflection on the subject of school violence, a fairly sensitive topic. It is hard to find a straight forward answer or explanation to why violence in schools happens. I think that the best thing we can do, is encourage more school boards to take the necessary security precautions to try to minimalise the violence in their schools, and be grateful if we never lived it.

First day of 9^th grade, Jayden 15-years-old, will be leaving school property in a critical situation. His injuries, including a fracture to the skull, a brain bleed and a fracture to the internal ear, are nothing compared to the psychological trauma caused by this event. Attacked in his blindside by one of his classmates, the 9^thgrader will not be returning to the same school after his convalescence. Jayden is not the only one facing this type of situation. Throughout the country, hundreds of teens spoke up about their experience with violence and aggression in schools. Being much more common than previously imagined, the results of a survey created by Mission Research studying the subject of school violence, reveal an eye-opening issue, denouncing school-related gender-based violence at a very serious level.

Canadian teens are more familiar than most with the subject of violence in our schools. for many of them, violence has made its way into their personal, daily lives. School-related gender-based violence can be noticed from a very young age and is an issue that touches both sides of the gender spectrum. Situations similar to the one Jayden faced are not uncommon. Actually, it is 40% of boys that face violence at least once throughout their academic journey. Often put under the umbrella of bullying, these violent behaviours are, in many cases, traumatising for teens, but no one really knows how to deal with them. After all, throughout the totality of school violence victims, only a mere 50% denunciate their aggressor to adults or trusted members of the school’s staff, and from this half, only a few are left satisfied by the measures taken. For young women, this culture of violence is primarily portrayed through unwanted sexual touches and sexual assaults. Cases of sexual assault related to school, mostly occurs between 7^th and 10^th grade confirms CBC news. For Brook, she was only 14 when an older student from her high school brought her to a parking lot, choked and sexually assaulted her. When Brook reported the situation and tried to get help, the school did not take the measure wanted and left her, as most girls going through similar situations, unsatisfied. 3 girls out of 5 did not get help needed after an incident of sexual assault. Only 1 out of 4 girls are satisfied with the measures taken by the school. Schools are facing these violent situations every day. In Ontario, the province faces in average more than 2100 cases a year, for a total that surpasses 10 incidents a day. Considering the statistics found in the Mission Research survey, we can, without a doubt, say that schools have a part of the blame to carry in this national shame that is school violence. 

What makes violence so popular amongst teens? Tracy Vaillancourt, professor studying violence prevention, acknowledges the possibility that, in our own cultural era, the smartphones along with the media could be negatively contributing to this nation-wide issue. In the documentary the mask you live in, we are confronted with the reality that boys will likely spend, in average, more than 40 hours a week watching television and more than 15 hours a week playing video games. Most of the heroes and characters portrayed in those movies, shows and games are not, in most cases, a correct or even passable representation of what a role model should be for the targeted age of these entertainments. Often surrounding the themes of misogyny, alcohol, drugs and violence, the entertainment industry is setting awful examples for our youth, not only in Canada, but around the globe. Furthermore, the hyper-sexualised world in which we live could be partially to blame for the rising cases of sexual assault seen in teens. the average age to which teens are first exposed to pornographic content reducing more and more every year, the hyper-sexualization of our teens could be resulting in these incredibly high numbers of sexual assaults. Being an issue on everyone’s lips in the last few years, directors and producers are welcoming this opportunity to open up and denunciate these problems through movies and tv shows. In HBO’s own Euphoria, director Sam Levinson denunciate many cultural issues faced by teens, including violence in a hyper-sexualised society. A prime example of the denunciation of said subject is the characterisation of Nate Jacobs, a violent, aggressive character of his show. Nate is focused on being the ultimate portrayal of masculinity, pressured by his family and the hyper-masculine football culture in which he flourishes, he will go to all ends to violently rejects everything that ties him to femininity.

Portraying staples of masculinity often being not enough to be proven a real man, boys will often recreate what they see in their heroes and role models, to engage violently against one another.  

            “I was told to toughen up”. This is how the school system have helped many boys in need over the years, not with a humane and comforting response to their situation but by playing with stereotypes. Being “tough”, is found in the same list (Kilmartin 2) as being, aggressive, unemotional, physical, dominant and above all, placed on the same page of initiate sex. When schools chose to solve boys’ issues through the use of stereotypical norms that are found at the same level as the actions they strive so much to eliminate, do we really expect other results than for boys to follow those stereotypical expectations set by society? School play a crucial role in the education of our youth; they shouldn’t be encouraging such behaviors. Furthermore, school being where most interactions between children, we could say it is the part of their environment that is most pressured by societal norms. Growing up, boys surrender their freedom to follow the stereotypical guidelines of what a man should be in society. Their ability to change and to be less or more influenced by those norms or guidelines, does not only reside in their age, it depends also of their environment. And what environment is more competitive than school? The competition between boys is often what is making them act violently, and that, just for the hope of not ending up at the bottom of the social ranking. After all, “A boy who fares poorly when competing with his male peers may find himself with low (social) status among this group as a result of his poor skills. In some sense he may be failing to prove his masculinity.”(Kilmartin 165) Masculinity is an endless competition like any other, but boys will often go to the extremes to prove their worth resulting in violent acts towards each other and towards women.

            In conclusion, the societal context that pressures our children, the hyper-sexualized world in which teens grow up and the culture of mass media and entertainment all play a part in this nation-wide problem. This violence was not formed out of thin air, the stereotypes of masculinity and societal norms that we enforce upon our teens are what created the situation as we know it today. In the light of what has been discussed in this text, Tracy Vaillancourt assures that it is only by acknowledging the presence of this problem that we will be able to provide a safe, less violent future for our youth.

Bibliography:

• https://gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088
• https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402
• https://en.unesco.org/themes/school-violence-and-bullying/school-related-gender-based-violence
• https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-school-violence-sexual-violence-1.5329520
• https://www.netnanny.com/blog/the-detrimental-effects-of-pornography-on-small-children/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuGoLCZ03eo&t=12s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyi4ZrphRUw
• Kilmartin, Christopher, and Andrew P. Smiler. “Defining Men’s Studies.” The MasculineSelf, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 1–7. 
• Kimmel, Michael.“Masculinity.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 1-5. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 June 2014. 1-5. Print. 
• Christopher Kilmartin and Andrew P. Smiler. “No Man Is an Island: Men in Relationships.” The Masculine Self, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019,pp.161–171. 
• http://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in-film/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fh_ZPc29ks

Living in a society where conformity is synonymous for our comfort zone, it can be hard for one not to abide by what society expects of them, often by fear of humiliation or exclusion. As perfectly explained by Kilamrtin, “Boys and men are taught to be competitive with one another, but the establishment of intimacy rests partly on revealing one’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities to another.” (Kilmartin 165). The establishment of intimacy is done with people of trust ranging from family, to longtime friends. This being said, when dealing with large groups of strangers or acquaintances such as the hockey community or schools, the feeling of wanting to “fit in” is often a lot more present and so consequently, individuals will discourage their initial perceptions in correlation to the group’s reaction. This often leads to ever growing issues protected by social interpretation. The process by which institutions such as the education system or the NHL overlook the impact of specific issues such as school violence or fighting in hockey will be thoroughly examined. Precisely, why such powerful institutions gravitate away from the ideal of transparency at the expense of their reputation. 

As described in the CBC documentary on school violence, students and their parents are kept clueless as to what happens when incidents occur within school boundaries. During the documentary, a mother explains her daughter’s incident on a school bus. When asked whether parents of the other children had received a notice of potential danger on the bus, she answered that no notices had been sent out, that “They just didn’t want to deal with it. They just wanted to sweep it under the rug.” (School Violence, CBC, 5:35). This lack of transparency is what causes the suspicion and curiosity into what these institutions might want to hide and ultimately makes people fear for their children’s safety. Independent research conducted by the CBC revealed that “students experience gender-based violence from a young age”. Evidence also proves that sexual harassment and assault are more often experienced by girls as opposed to boys which centers around bullying (Common, & Singh, CBC). For the education system to hide behind the redundant belief that “boys will be boys”, it’s reputation must be at great risk. How and why can they believe that transparency may harm their image? Another study was conducted in 2019 by the CBC on a sample of 4000 canadian students regarding experiences of assault in school. Results showed that 41% of boys claimed to have been sexually assaulted at high school, 26 percent of girls said yes to unwanted sexual contact and finally, 25% of students first experienced such kinds of assaults before grade 7 (Common, & Singh, 2019). These results are without a doubt shocking to anyone, but shouldn’t this information be well known by all of us who attend or send our children to school? The fact that this information is being kept secret is really no coincidence. If these statistics were commonly known, people would think twice about choosing the right school for their children, which to say the least, would not be very beneficial to the education system as a whole.

The issue of transparency is also present in the controversy surrounding the impact of hockey fights on athletes involved. For decades, the NHL community rose out of excitement to the fighting that takes place on the ice. Although this issue is similar in many ways to violence in schools, fighting in the NHL is surprisingly defended by thousands as being “necessary” in preventing more dramatic incidents to occur. Many well known advocates of the game such as Don Cherry call it “the code”, a code that supposedly makes the league “safer”. As Don Cherry explained in a CBC documentary, “…you don’t hit a guy when he’s down. No sucker punch. You fight with honour.” (McKeown, 2010). It seems as though the belief that men must be stoic and strong has evolved to new heights within the decades of hockey growth. But why must these athletes continue to risk their lives for the enjoyment of others? In his essay on masculinity, Micheal Kimmel explains this phenomenon as “Doing Gender” and states, “institutions accomplish the creation of gender differences and the reproduction of gender order through several gendered processes.”(Kimmel 3). Gender order refers to the socially constructed expectations between men and women in society which ultimately assigns roles or responsibilities to both in a gender biased manner. This suggests that while roughness and fighting is present in hockey, it is present because of how institutions have created and shaped our expectations of how men should behave. This doesn’t prove the point that fighting should remain in hockey, but allows us to understand why it is there, and why discussing the issue now is fundamental for possible change in the future. In the end, trying to overlook the serious impact that fighting has on athletes for the well being of a sport’s reputation is only a sign of guilt.

When looking at the institutional transparency problem through a substantially larger perspective, it becomes more and more obvious that this issue is everywhere and anywhere we look. This is because all social institutions’ foundations are largely based upon gender bias which assigns specific positions and responsibilities to both men and women in a very calculated way. For example, as Michael Kimmel explained in regards to the field of medicine, it is much easier for a male student to pursue his education with no interruption than it is for a woman and the burden that is to carry and raise a child whilst pursuing her education. Thus, it is fair to say that “such programs are designed for male doctors” (Kimmel, 3). Understanding the fundamentals of Kimmel’s example makes it much easier for one to understand how and why the expectations and responsibilities for the enforcers of the NHL are what they have become. For this same reason, the violence in schools is recurring because of how institutions choose to deal with the issues at hand, and because becoming transparent as to what really happens will only prove guilt. Finally, a boy with recurring acts of violence in school cannot be viewed as a lost cause because once given a label by society, similar to older offenders, individuals will live up to this label as an identity.

In the end, being transparent as to what really happens as well as its true consequences is needed when dealing with such a dilemma.. Yes “boys will be boys”, but why not act on the issue at hand as opposed to denying its existence? Not acknowledging their mistakes acts as a barrier to change. As Bruce Lee once said, “Mistakes are always forgivable if only one has the courage to admit them”.

Works Cited

Kimmel, M. (2000). Masculinity. Class readings. 

Kilmartin, C. (1994) No man is an island: Men in relationships. Class readings.

McKeown, B. (2010). The Code. CBC News/MarketPlace. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/ fifth/episodes/2009-2010/the-code

Common, D., Singh, A., & Taylor, C. (2019) ‘I thought he was dead’: CBC survey reveals 4 in 10 boys are physically assaulted at school. CBC News/MarketPlace. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-marketplace-1.5224865

SchoolViolence. (2019). School Violence: How to fight for safer schools. CBC MarketPlace. 

https://gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088