Men are traditionally thought as aggressive and being tough, and this ideology is still very prominent in the 21st century. One of the areas containing a lot of physical contact is in sports. You might be thinking of fighting sports such as boxing, mixed martial arts or even football, where physical contact is the goal of the game, but no. The team sport with the most fighting and unnecessary injuries is hockey. One of the main reasons it is so prominent is perfectly explained by Kilmartin: “aggressiveness” (7). In his book explaining masculinity, “Masculinity is characterized by a willingness to take (physical) risks and become violent if necessary” (7). Men are just naturally more aggressive and seek fighting more than women. This, combined with the long history and ideology of fighting in hockey makes minimizing this aspect of the game very difficult.

As “The Fifth Estate”, a CBC documentary, discovers an unwritten code, nicknamed “The Code”. This hidden law of hockey is kept by the pride, feeling of accomplishment and love for the game they professionally play. In these unwritten rules, when a smaller player gets bullied by a larger player, it is the responsibility of his teammates to help him. These are called the enforcers and their main job is to fight with the other team. Another rule is to take the helmets off, to not get hand injuries after dropping the mitts, because apparently, hands are more important than a brain to some people.

The brain is the central organ to every person, and is the reason we are alive. In hockey, however, entertainment for some people seems more important then this vital organ. Multiple brain injuries are caused by tens and hundreds of small, repetitive hits to the head, and in the long term cause degradation in the human brain. One of the main injuries that hockey players can get because of fighting is Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Of course, the NHL completely refutes this fact, as less fights could possibly mean less viewers and in turn less money. The disease is not obvious at first and has some symptoms such as “impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and paranoia” (Concussion Legacy Foundation). The symptoms continually get worse, until the person with it is unrecognisable.

An example of players diagnosed with this awful disease are Wade Belak and Todd Ewen. These NHL players decided to take their own lives because of CTE. They would constantly have severe memory loss, complete disconnections with the outside world and severe mood switches, even with loved ones and good friends. Wade’s wife says how he would sometimes turn into someone else and not have any idea what he was doing. She says that “he was trying to brush her (his daughter) hair after the bath, and he smacked her with the brush, which he has never done anything like that” (Hockey wives 15:25).

It is time to change what the code really means and does to certain people, as even though it is a way to respect the other players, it is not worth respecting if it means life or death. For players who are only on a team to fight, there is a huge amount of pressure on their shoulder because they must fight often, even if they don’t want to. These are the players that have the most risk of suffering long term brain damage. The first step to making hockey a safer game is to convince the officials and coaches of the NHL that fighting is useless and the game would work fine without it, since in the end, the game is happening for entertainment purposes.

1. “What Is CTE?” Concussion Legacy Foundation, 15 Apr. 2020, concussionfoundation.org/CTE-resources/what-is-CTE.
2. Hockey fight: Wives reveal the cost of concussions – Episodes – The Fifth Estate. (2020). Retrieved 4 May 2020, from  https://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2019-2020/hockey-fight-wives-reveal-the-cost-of-concussions
3. The Code – Episodes – The Fifth Estate. CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2009-2010/the-code.
4. Kilmartin. “Defining Men’s Studies.”

I learned a lot about our oppressive and racist society while attending both conferences during the international women’s week on Monday march 2nd and Wednesday march 4th. In the first conference, I was able to understand the pain of indigenous women and the problem the oil industry and climate change is affecting their already endangered lives. The problems they have already been encountering since America was colonized, including decolonization, racism and unwanted violence have gotten even worse recently because of climate. Big oil companies are destroying their lands and occupying big establishments for primarily white male workers that are completely disrespecting and ruining their livelihood.

In the second conference titled “Living in the Shadow of Law 21”, I listened to the rocky and difficult journey Muslim women have had since their immigration to Canada. I now understand the difficulty and unfair violence against them just because of their religion, skin color or country of origin. The Law 21, mostly targeting hijab wearing women, is wanting to force them to remove it if they work in a governmental owned job field. This is constantly threatening them and their religion for no other reason than a religious piece of clothing, and causing unnecessary racism. An example of this are ignorant remarks and experiences the speakers have been told. Nadia Naqvi has had multiple teachers that have said racist remarks about her been fellow colleges for no reason or students that have screamed “Allahu Akbar”, implying she was a terrorist just because of her religion.

Throughout these presentation, I was able to make a few parallels with the readings we have read during the semester. The main thing is the stereotypes placed on males when they born, such as liking the color blue and sports, are the same type placed on Muslim women by the rest of society: they are all terrorists, violent and need to make a big deal to pray all the time, which is very obviously false.

In conclusion, what I take from these presentations is that our western is still heavily biased towards predominantly Caucasian males, and that anyone who doesn’t fit these standards is considered different and inferior.

For my interview, I decided to talk to a friend that is my age that I met online a few years ago. I think interviewing someone I have never met in real life can be good because they don’t need to be scared of what they are saying to me.

In the first question, when I asked why he is friends with his best friends, he said that it is partly because they have known each other since they were children and have been to school together since kindergarten. They have stayed friends for this long because they can trust each other completely and his friend has always been there for him.

In the second question, when I asked what he likes to do with his friend, he answered that it is because they like to do activities together. He said that they like playing games together, going out to eat, drinking together and stuff like that. Basically things that are very similar to what the typical definition of a man would be. They also like playing sports and going to each others house to “chill”.

When I asked the third question on if he ever told his friend how much he meant, he said “no, we don’t need to say it to know that we are best friends, it is obvious”. He has never told his friend how much he means to him and just assumed that he knows. My interviewed friend said that if they talked too intimately it would get a bit awkward and they would start messing around.

In Kimmel’s “Masculinity”, he talks about many problems with our society surrounding masculinity and gender. On page 3, he says: “Institutions accomplish the creation of gender difference and the reproduction of gender order through several gendered processes.” This means that institutions such as schools, hospitals, workplaces all have a heavy gender bias that is extremely hard to remove because it has been a part of our society since the beginning. An example that Kimmel gives is that the higher position jobs are easier to get by males because the education system for PhD’s are based upon the biological clocks of men. For medical school, between the ages of 22 and about 28, children a woman might want to have could greatly disrupt this goal. In “Man Enough” episode 4, the whole show revolves around stopping this behavior that is standardized in our whole society and changes the way we act and function so that men and women have equal chances in life.

In Kimmel’s conclusion, he uses masculinities instead of masculinity because, as he explained on page 1-2, there is not one way to define a man. Everyone sees masculinity differently, from culture to culture and class to class, so there is not one concrete definition of what makes a man a man. How I see this concept of plural masculinities in the show “Man Enough” is that even though the six people talking during the show were men, every single one of them had a very different story. We cannot just fit all of these life experiences in the same category of masculinity. Their views of masculinity have also evolved over time with these experiences.

Qualities

Stoick Haddock, more commonly known as Stoick the Vast, is the chief captain of the village in the How to train your dragon movie series. He is a big, strong Viking who feels a large sense of responsibility to the village of Berk and keeping it safe from dragons. Even if he is strong, very brave and protective towards his fellow Vikings, he has many flaws that can’t be overseen. Firstly, he is very stubborn and closed-minded. He feels that everything must be done his way and everyone must think like him. This can mostly be seen by his relationship with his son, who is friends with a dragon. Because of this relationship between the dragon and the boy, he sees his son as weak and “not a real Viking”. He doesn’t care about the boy’s feelings and won’t listen to his point of view. Secondly, as his name implies, he is quite stoic. He doesn’t want people to see him weak or sad. Instead, he gets angry and does something without listening to others to seem more manly. Thirdly and lastly, going on the last point, Stoick does not know how to act emotionally. He often says mean and detrimental things without knowing the harm it can do to others. That being said, he evolves and gets much better in all of these areas as the movie and TV series advance.

We found that this fictional character’s habits correlate well with Kimmel’s definition of masculinity in the section of inexpressiveness and independence. This characteristic of masculinity states that men should show no sign of weakness. Stoick never shows the side of him that can be weak or hurt. He never shows any sadness or physical weakness. Instead, he gets mad and displays his strength to look strong and manly. As said in Kimmel’s book, men have “strength of belief, dedication (to a cause) or stubbornness.” Stoick the Vast is very stubborn and close-minded, which fits perfectly with the description. Especially at the beginning of the movie series, he is the typical Viking who won’t take advice from anybody and would rather fight than try to debate and listen to others. He also will not listen to his son, who has a different view on dragons than him. This makes him hard-shelled and stubborn.

Bibliography:

https://howtotrainyourdragon.fandom.com/wiki/Stoick_the_Vast_(Franchise)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(film)

One of the things that jumped out to me in this documentary was the fact that men can get bullied just for showing any small emotion. Showing a facet of your real self that isn’t seen as manly can mean years of name-calling and bullying, especially in school. Something as small as playing with girls could mean rejection by boys because males are only supposed to play with other males. Even if this is in primary school, done between little kids, it shows a lot about the society we live in and the brainwashing people receive starting at an extremely small age about masculinity. Another thing in this movie that surprised me was the number of men that commit suicide. When someone gets help from suicide prevention, it is almost always a girl. Why? Because men are taught to keep their emotions in and not go and get help, from fear of getting bullied and seen as feminine. Unlike females, men become more aggressive and violent when depressed. Instead of taking this as a sign of depression, society just thinks the boy is a troublemaker and a bad kid. Because of this, depression is overseen and only 30% of boys try to get help. This causes a much higher rate of suicide in men than women, which surprises me.

In the book from Carlos Andres Gomez, the thing that caught my attention was how when he traveled to Zambia, two straight men were perfectly comfortable holding hands in public, without getting weird looks and being seen as gay. This is a big contrast to the way men had to act in the documentary in the US, where men distance each other and don’t show feelings to not look gay. This makes me think that the United States viewpoint on the way a man should be is much less advanced than in other countries such as Zambia in this case.

For my inspirational man, I chose to go with Peter Tabichi, a Kenyan science teacher at Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School.

I picked this man because of his devotion and willingness to give back all of his goods to his community. He donates around 80% of his monthly salary to help his school and children in his local village. Not only has he given a lot of money, but he also started a peace club and teaches locals how to grow better crops so that they stay healthy. Because of all of these acts of selflessness, he obtained the status of the 2019 Global Teacher Prize winner. This prize is a competition that receives over 10000 teachers worldwide.

After winning his 1 million dollar prize, he stated in an interview that “He plans to use the money from his win to improve the school and feed the poor.” (global news) Because of all of these previous selfless acts of kindness, I am sure that he will keep helping his community in many various forms.

Steak