Introduction

Violence has always been a problem in societies across the world. It can take many forms (psychological or physical), occur in different places (workplace, online or etc.) and can target anyone for any reason. Where does this originate from? The first instances of violence that we can all probably recall is during our school days seeing bullying and harassment firsthand. Masculinity plays a big part in why people experience bullying and violence in school and in everyday life.  My goal, with this essay, is to show how the toxic masculinity stereotype plays a big part in the existence of bullying and violence in school. In addition to that, this essay will also cover the psychological effects on men and how we can help limit the occurrence of bullying. To achieve these goals, the reflection is split into three sections: Homophobia, Power & Toughness and Fatherhood.

Homophobia

According to a study by Bully Free Alberta, the rate of discrimination experienced among students who identify as a member of the LGBTQ is three times higher than heterosexual youth. Homophobia is one of the key issues in masculinity because being homosexual or appearing feminine in any way, in the view of other men, emasculates and humiliates you as a man. This relates to bullying because being seen as different than the rest because you are feminine, or homosexual can lead to being picked on, verbally abused, excluded from activities/groups and more. The reasoning behind this is because being associated with gay/feminine men gives others the idea that you are homosexual/feminine yourself and that scares them because they believe that they will be emasculated and picked on as well by their peers: “As adolescents, we learn that our peers are a kind of gender police, consistently threatening to unmask us as feminine, as sissies” (Kimmel, 148). They hate the fact that being a certain way threatens their manhood, so they resort to being disrespectful and aggressive towards homosexual men to demonstrate to their peers that they are masculine and have nothing to do with them (members of the LGBTQ) which leads to homophobic bullying. “Boys among boys are ashamed to be unmanly” wrote an educator in 1871. The quote says it all; Men are scared of other men. To be able to limit or even stop homophobic bullying, we need to get over these set of “rules” and grow to love and understand each other.

Power & Toughness

Being a man is associated to many stereotypes and beliefs. One of the most prominent and widely known beliefs is that all men should be tough and powerful: “Manhood is equated with power over women, over other men” (Kimmel, 149). They are constantly being observed, scrutinized and judged by our peers for everything that we do. Also, they are always expected to fit in the category of a tough, powerful, masculine, athletic, apathetic individual and constantly being challenged by other men and even women. In other words, they have to “be men”. This directly relates to bullying and violence in schools because that is the behaviour that is expected from them. “One boy will accuse another of being a sissy, to which another boy will respond that he is not a sissy, that the first boy is. They may have to fight it out to see who’s lying. […] And what will his father or older brothers tell him if he chooses to run home crying? It will be some time before he regains any sense of self-respect” (Kimmel, 147). Michael Kimmel gives us an excellent example of the kind of situations that happen in the schoolyard and even in workplaces. As described in the quote, men are forced to be tough and retaliate when threatened by other men in a public setting. If they don’t, they risk losing their manhood and being ridiculed by their peers and even by members of their own family. As a result, many of these situations lead to physical violence to prove who is tougher. To be able to decrease violence and bullying in schools, we really need to drop these global assumptions and let men live their lives without constantly fearing of being under the lens of a microscope.

Fatherhood

Paternal parenting (i.e. fatherhood) is crucial to the upbringing and development of young men and determines what kind of person that man will be probably end up as. With that being said, a negative environment at home (parental conflict, abuse, divorced parents, etc.) has negative psychological effects on young men that lead them to lash out, be aggressive and be violent: “Boys from subsequently divorcing families showed more aggression, more difficulty in controlling impulses, less cooperation, and higher anxiety in novel situations than boys from intact families” (Kilmartin, 190). As they are young, the only places that kids go to regularly (excluding home) is school and that’s where they typically express the emotions that they’ve been building up from home and that can lead to violent behaviour towards other kids and faculty staff. We need to come together and be there for our children emotionally and physically to be able to prevent more cases of violence.

Conclusion

To conclude, masculinity plays a big part in bullying and violence in schools. Personally, it hurts me a lot to see my fellow peers go through this because of the numerous expectations and outside factors that affect their psychological health on a daily basis. We need to unite and demolish these ridiculous guidelines and gender boundaries set by society.

This year’s international Women’s week covered interesting and controversial topics such as Bill 21, islamophobia, violence against women and the government’s aid/hindrance on these issues. The class attended two different seminars: a panel talking about the fight of indigenous women and a panel talking about their fights against islamophobia as Muslim women. We learned the pain and the disadvantages that these women have to go through on a daily basis.

As I was not present for the first seminar, I did some research on the issues of the pipeline project controversy and the effects of the climate change on women via the web. First of all, the pipeline projects through indigenous lands requires for the government and companies to get approval of the indigenous communities to move forward and build on their land. The thing is that getting that approval from the communities is tricky and companies get approval from band councils and not hereditary chiefs that leads to numerous appeals and disputes over the projects. Cynthia Callison, a negotiator for agreements between the government and indigenous communities, said that “[…] projects have gone ahead despite the fact that not all Indigenous communities affected by the projects have given their consent. The consequences of building these pipelines are the destruction of the ancestral and traditional land of indigenous communities and the numerous terrible effects on the environment. Second of all, the climate change affects women more severely than it affects men because they don’t have the same resources as them. Women are most likely to be poor from disasters and environmental changes because of the lack of resources to adapt. From the information gathered from chatelaine.com, In a 25-year survey in India’s Andhya Pradesh, 44 percent of respondents who slid into poverty cited weather events as a cause.

The second seminar was focused on Islamophobia and Bill 21. We had a panel of two speakers: Nadia Naqvi and Laïty Fary Ndiaye, two Muslim women that were heavily touched by this bill. The seminar started with the experiences of Nadia and her hard experiences with Islamophobia starting as early as childhood with teachers telling her to “Go back home” and the frightening experience that her family experienced when a random stranger beat her father simply because of his religion and the way that he looked. Not just that but also with 9/11, countless Muslim men and women were struggling to get Visas to numerous countries such as Canada because the country that they were coming from was a Muslim country (Nadia’s husband had to wait 3 years when normally it takes 8 months). We learned that Bill 21 had an effect on her because she was a teacher at a school in the public sector and that it meant that she couldn’t advance with her career and had to stay where she was simply because she was wearing an hijab and Bill 21 didn’t allow representatives of the government (police officers, teachers, etc.) to wear religious symbols to preserve the laicity of the province. We also learn more from Laïty who an activist for Muslim women and she is shared some of her experiences as a non-visible Muslim because she decided not to wear a hijab. She talked about her experiences with friends and other people criticizing Muslims in front of her and not knowing that she, in fact, is a Muslim herself. We learned about the experiences that these women have to go through on the daily basis from directly getting abused physically to hearing someone talk badly of the religion.

To conclude, I learned a lot attending the seminar and doing research online about these issues and I am grateful to learn from these women and be part of the annual International Women’s week. Personally, I believe in that everyone should be treated equally no matter what creed, race, religion, sexual orientation or gender they have or are and hearing the stories from these women made me want to see a change in our society today. Finally, I understood in depth how much women go through on a daily basis (even worse for Muslim women & women of different race) and really helped me improve on myself by changing the way I think and act towards other people in the future.

Sources

https://www.chatelaine.com/news/gas-oil-pipelines-in-canada/

Without Indigenous consent for pipelines, more protests to be expected: experts

https://www.chatelaine.com/news/women-shoulder-the-burden-of-climate-change/

On page 3 of “Masculinity” by Michael Kimmel, it is mentioned that “Institutions accomplish the creation of gender difference and the reproduction of gender order through several gendered processes”. Basically, he’s just saying that the institutions in our communities try to create a gender neutral environment but they end up creating traces of gender difference and it becomes a breeding ground for gender inequality: asking a boy over a girl to pick up something heavy, teachers are usually female and directors male, girl lines and boy lines, etc. I can relate this quote to the episode of “Man Enough” because there was a part where Justin Baldoni was talking about taking his cool guy friend’s side over the girl because of the “bro code” (learned in school) and that he was scared that they would single him out and he would lose his reputation.

On page 4 of “Masculinity” by Michael Kimmel, he writes that “Understanding how we do masculinities[…]opens up the unimaginable possibilities of social change”. The word masculinities simply means the different ways that different groups around the World define masculinity:”The use of the plural—masculinities—recognizes the dramatic variation in how different groups define masculinity, even in the same society at the same time, as well as individual differences” (Kimmel, 1). He prefers the use of this word because he understands that the singular version of the word means something different to groups and cultures all around the World and he is talking to all of them. I can relate this quote to the episode of “Man Enough” because of the discussion they had in the last 10 minutes where they said that if they all treat women better and teach others to do so than we can see more positive change in society.

The man that I chose for my blog is none other than Colin Kaepernick, the man at the centre of sports controversy for the last couple of years. Colin was a Quarterback for the 49ers for the 2016 NFL Season that decided to take a knee during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to show that he doesn’t want to stand for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour. This happened after the series of African-American deaths caused by police brutality/shootings. Since the incident, owners of NFL teams have conspired to not sign him and consequently he is not playing in the NFL anymore. I feel inspired by his story and his bravery because he sacrificed his whole career in believing in what he believed in and didn’t think twice in standing up. Currently, he is an activist that founded the “Know Your Rights” camp that teaches disadvantaged youths about legal rights and self-empowerment and has done several donations to charities.

Colin inspires me because he taught us that we need to stand up and fight in what we believe in no matter the consequences. I guess I find people that fight for their rights, ideas and to change society inspirational such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and numerous others.

My favourite food is Fried Rice & Chicken.