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.

Last week we were audience to two different lectures that informed us on the different struggles minorities live through in our society. They were concentrated on indigenous women and Muslim women in Quebec.

The first lecture “Climate Change, Pipelines, and Violence Against Women” concentrated on the indigenous culture. Apart from all the economical issues that were presented to me, the thing that struck me the most were all the statistics provided to show us how indigenous women are the ones most endangered by physical violence, and especially male violence in Quebec. I was surprised to learn that all the cultural oppression and violence that these women have suffered for generations can be categorized as a legitimate genocide, and the speakers proved it by providing us with definitions of “genocide” and lots and lots of examples about indigenous society in Quebec. Although this is a subject on which I have not been informed well enough to give an opinion, I can see a clear link between the every day violence indigenous women live though, and the many readings on white male masculinity that I have read in this class, that will be provided in the next paragraph.

The reading “Masculinity” by Michael S. Kimmel, provides a very interesting definition of the general definition of masculinity established in America: unlike a woman. Now, we all know the stereotypical description of the perfect man around here is someone who provides for the family, is good looking, plays sports, etc, as is also provided in the text by Kimmel. What is interesting to me is that the word “Protestant” came up in this well established definition of a man in America. I never really thought about his religion but I see now that it plays a very important part in the issue we are discussing. In the lecture mentioned in the previous paragraph, the speakers provided us with a very quick history lesson on how assimilation of the indigenous people happened around here not that long ago, when Europeans started colonizing the lands. The clergy [the church] was teaching indigenous men how to beat their women, because this is how a woman was treated, at least according to Christianity. The lecturers also showed us a very interesting religious text “Maleus Maleficarum” from 1487, that throughly explains that women are evil creatures, witches that shouldn’t be trusted nor respected, and are created to serve only evil. Now, it is clear that the Protestant ideology of a man in America wasn’t established yesterday and has been around for centuries, I can now clearly see a link between the violence against indigenous women, and generations of religious teachings to men about the ways to treat women. To conclude with an unsettling phrase that however helps get my point across easily: old habits die hard. Thus, the violence against indigenous women hasn’t died yet in our country, through no fault of men on their own, but through generations of horrible religious ideologies forcing men to be “unlike a woman”.

The second speech “Living in the Shadow of the Law 21” focused on Muslim women and their struggles to live with a law that forces them to remove religious symbols of clothing at their jobs (for jobs like teachers, public service officers that carry a weapon, and other authority figures). Although it was never publicly stated, this law clearly targets the Muslim community, seen as they are the ones that display the most visible religious symbols in their clothing, unlike a Christian that could easily hide their tiny little cross under their clothes. This is exactly the point that stuck with me the most from the whole lecture: the inability to hide who you are for certain people. One of the lecturers was a visible Muslim: meaning she wore a hijab (head scarf covering her hair and neck) but she was white, while the other Muslim woman showed her hair but she was black. The latter talked about how it is sometimes very easy for her to hide her religion in situations she evaluates to be dangerous for her career or even her personal well being, solely due to the fact she has no religious symbols in her clothing. But it is however very hard for her to hide her race simply because her skin is black. Now, we need to understand that wearing a scarf is a choice, so of course a white Muslim woman can easily take off her scarf and blend in, but this is a violation of her religious beliefs, therefore it feels very much like the assimilation we discussed in the previous paragraph. Aside the obvious racist factor in this whole story, there is another thing about my readings on masculinity that I would like to talk about.

The two women talked about the feeling of being invisible and not belonging, and not having any culture to relate with if they chose to hide the parts of themselves they physically could. And I, funnily, see a clear connection between this, and the reading “Masculinity as Homophobia” by Kimmel. He talks at long and large about homophobia specifically and how it is, in essence, a fear to be perceived as a woman, a fear of the the unknown, a fear from other men and what they might think of you, an established set of rules to follow in order to be accepted. And I think we can easily relate this concept, if we exclude homosexuality from the picture, to the law 21. It was, simply put, established by men who are afraid of the unknown, afraid to be perceived as too acceptant of other cultures, afraid to be anything else than what the stereotypical man is. Much like a homosexual man feels invisible or not belonging or not being themselves when they are forced to hide their homosexuality from other man, the many religious minorities in Quebec experience the same feelings of cultural assimilation due to this law. If we can understand why a gay man would be afraid to show his true self, we can understand by the same logic why a Muslim woman would too. And we can understand how horrible it must feel.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this a a very small fragment of a very big problem but it is the only one I feel comfortable enough discussing. Although, I think that the readings by Kimmel make a very good connection with the problems that minorities are experiencing in our society and make it easier to understand both these issues, and masculinity as we study it in class.

To study male to male close friendships I have interviewed two men in my life about their best friend. Just to clarify the text, the names of the “friends” won’t be mentioned but Alex and Mike are not talking about each other, they are taking about two different people.

The first one is Alex, 21 years old and openly bisexual. Alex is one of my very close friends and I have known him for many years, I am interviewing him about his friend that currently lives on his couch. When I asked Alex why is he close to his friend he answered “Because we grew up together and we know each other, therefore we don’t judge each other. Even though we don’t like the same things we respect and don’t judge each other.” Right from the start we see that respect is a very important characteristic that Alex looks for in a friend and the fact that he mentioned the word “judge” twice leads me to think that he may have been judged a fair amount throughout his childhood and he only kept contact with the only friend that didn’t judge him for his interests. (After a discussion with Alex my assumption turns out to be true). I can relate this first reaction to a big portion of the text “No Man Is an Island: Men in Relationships” by Christopher Kilmartin and Andrew P. Smiler. In a big part of that chapter they discuss how the characteristics that men look for in a friend are trustworthiness and respect, they want to be able to share their fears, desires, hopes and dreams without being judged.

Let’s compare Alex’s answer to my second interview with Alex’s roommate, Mike. Mike is 27 years old and he is heterosexual. (Sexuality is important for the second part of my interview) When asked the same question Mike answered differently : “Because we have the same mind, we have some of the same interests but it is mainly because we agree on the same politics about life and we have the same opinions about most things” I asked Mike if not being judged and being respected are important aspects of his friendship and he told me that with the years he has come to realize that no one will respect you forever and no friendships last a lifetime so he just goes with the vibe of the person. It saddens me a bit to see how two people that grew up in relatively the same society have such different views on life and friendships but this makes a very good comparison with a part of the text mentioned above. They say that men that experience less emotional relationships with other men, or have less personal connection in their friendships are generally more depressed and lonely. Mike could be a great example.

When asked what kind of thing they like to do with their (respective) friends both Mike and Alex had similar answers : “Hang out, play music, play video games, go out and find something fun to do such as see a show or go to a rave” But at this point in the conversation Alex told me I’m becoming annoying with my questions because they seemed too personal.

When I asked Mike my last question: “Have you ever told your friend how much he means to you (or vice versa)? How did it go” Mike was very open about it and he told me how at one point of his life he was feeling really down because he had just broken up with his ex girlfriend and his friend was also going thought a tough patch and they had a long talk and tried to help each other and be there for each other emotionally. And they let each other know they weren’t alone in this. I think that this is a very touching thing to hear especially coming from a man that previously said he doesn’t really trust anyone. It shows that even though he is a bit closed up he still realizes his need for affection and he accepts the help when it is offered.

Alex on the other hand was very annoyed with my personal questions and when I asked him the same question he answered that it was too long ago and that he didn’t remember. I also asked him if he was under influence when they had their deep talk and he answered: “I told you I don’t remember”. The thing that I know about Alex and his best friend is that his best friend was the first to know about Alex’s sexuality. He is also the first man that Alex has had a homoerotic experience with. This is the reason (again, confirmed by Alex) that it is difficult for his friend to express the emotional connection he has for Alex because, as mentioned in the text, there might be a fear to be perceived as homosexual when he isn’t.

To conclude, something very interesting that I have found with my two interviews is that some of the behaviours and answered correlate perfectly with the behaviours mentioned in Kimmel’s study, but some are completely opposite. Like the fact that mike wanted to keep talking about his friend and he was very comfortable expressing his emotional relationship with his friend even though he has led a more strict and gendered masculinity in his life. When on the other hand Alex, who has had very emotional connections with his friends and is even openly bisexual, does not want to express these feelings out loud. This only shows us that even though we study men in a very generalized setting, there is much we don’t know or understand about the human psychology and everyone goes through their own challenges that shape them into the person they are.

First, on page three of “Masculinity” by Michael Kimmel, he writes “Institutions accomplish the creation of gender difference and the reproduction of gender order through several gendered processes.” A fairly complicated sentence that signifies a simple thing: institutions contribute to gender differences. A good example would be how in a lot of institutions, women aren’t even considered for certain positions simply because they are women, or in even more extreme cases, when they are given the same position as a man, the title and salary are different. Kimmel gives lots of examples to support his statement and if you think about it, it can be very present and noticeable.

This essentially means that institutions aren’t only ruled by gendered standards that are already put in place in a society but they contribute to them, they contribute to these standards becoming even more distinct between the two genders. Simply put, if we start hiring more men to be secretaries it wouldn’t be considered a “woman’s job” anymore.

An interesting example is the illustration presented below by a New York Times cartoonist:

When we talk about institutions, it mostly applies to workplace, schools, gouvernement, etc and not so much families or friendships. But the problem can be closely related to the family life that people lead, and some discussions in the documentary “Man Enough? Episode 4: #metoo” cover that issue. For example, one of the men that were gathered for the discussion brought up a very good point, he said that no matter how hard we try to raise our children and teach them right from wrong, they go out and experience all sorts of things and are exposed to all sorts of misconceptions all day that when they come back home, you need to “retune them”. At the end of the line, we can’t show them everything and they will end up adopting some of the gendered standards that institutions and society have put in place. Another point that was brought up was that sometimes we might not see anything wrong with the way young boys treat women, at the moment it is harmless even tho it might be disturbing to hear, no one really stops them from talking about women as if they were sexual conquests and objectifying them, but when they grow up they adapt the same behaviours in their jobs and act the same way in their newly acquired power (as a manger, instructor, CEO or even doctor for example).

To conclude my first point, what Kimmel says about gendered institutions in his books is very real, and he provides much more examples than me in his text (med school and the way the program is shaped to be easily completed by a man but not a woman is very good example). I personally think that family life and the life we lead outside of institutions also inevitably contributes to gender inequalities and sadly, it is the first place to start if we want to see a change happen, according to the discussions in the documentary.

Second, in the conclusion to his article on page four, Kimmel writes, “Understanding how we do masculinities…opens up the unimaginable possibilities of social change.” It is maybe confusing to read the word “masculinity” in the plural form but Kimmel’s argument is that masculinity can not be defined as one single unchanging characteristic of men. Depending on the society you live in, your family, your religion, when and where you were born, your definition of masculinity is bound to change. And so, masculinity isn’t just one, there are multiple different masculinities, because of the way different people view the definition.

To begin I will give a personal example of this phenomenon and then I will relate it to the documentary mentioned previously. I was a school photographer and I used to take individual pictures but also pictures of siblings. And sometimes, to my unpleasant surprise, some boys, however young would refuse to hug or even touch their brothers for the picture. The excuse some gave me was I’m not gay, even though these boys weren’t more than 5-7 years old they already had a very strict definition of masculinity embedded in their heads. On the contrary, some boys would hug their bothers and even kiss each other on the checks for the photos.

To relate this point to the documentary I will first start by pointing out that every single one of the men that were gathered in a discussion had different points to bring in and never fully agreed with each other nor had the same experiences. This is an easy way to point out that there are multiple definitions of masculinity and not just one. Also, if we go back to the point with the “retuning” of the children. This also shows that there are different definitions of masculinity. Your father may be telling you that it’s okay to hug your friends and it’s okay to be emotional and cry and be heard, but when you go to school and your friends tell you not to do these things because “it’s gay” you are in a dilemma between two different definitions of masculinity.

And lastly, when Kimmel says that this opens up the possibility of social change, he is right. As I said a few times in this long blog post, the family aspect of boys lives can play a critical role on their definition of masculinity, and even though institutions have gendered standards that are already set, boys and men do not have to adapt or learn from them.

Marshall Mathers, widely known as Eminem, but he started off his career under the pseudonym “Slim Shady”. In this blog post we will be only talking about Slim Shady (referred to from now on as either “Slim” or “Shady”) Marshal’s public personality has changed during the years but when he started off as Shady he was the embodiment of the fourth American masculinity characteristic, as defined by Deborah David and Robert Brannon in their book (1976), “Adventurousness and Aggressiveness”.

In their text, they describe how masculinity is characterized by taking physical risks and becoming violent if necessary to achieve your goal. In the beginning of his hip-hop career, Slim did a lot of rap battles and was affiliated with street gangs, he embodied this masculine ideology with his dangerous behaviour and surrounded himself with the same type of people. As we know, there are many stories about rappers from that area being killed or beaten up just to send a message, even good friends of Shady. Back then, rap wasn’t only their way to express themselves through music, it was about honour and territory, and of course what better way to protect your territory and your friends than with violence? Or so would this particular characteristic of masculinity imply.

Another thing that helps provide a good example of why Shady is the embodiment of “aggressiveness and adventurousness” is the way he used to act in public, in interviews and in his songs/videoclips. Masculinity “discourages respect for authority and rules” (as mentioned in David and Brannon’s book) and this is exactly what Slim Shady did whenever he got the chance, and this is how he gained success. In interviews, he would insult the interviewer, he would say controversial things that weren’t previously discussed and use inappropriate for television slang language. Also, much like the picture shown above, there are lots of images of him from that period in his life making inappropriate hand gestures. His song “Just don’t give a fuck” resumes well the character and his philosophy about life at that period.

The expression “Give ‘em Hell” mentioned in the book is used to refer to the encouragement for male violence and it is interesting that even Slim Shady has used the exact same expression in a few of his songs. For instance “Cleaning out my closet” where in the first few verses he encourages children to “give hell” to their parents. The full verse is “give ‘em hell ‘long as I’m breathing” where he kind of refers to himself as the creator of chaos and authority disrespect, in my opinion.

To conclude, of course Slim Shady was just a stage name and stage character portrayed by Marshall Mathers. His ideologies were purely entertainment and success oriented and even though he had the very difficult life that led him to this path, he in no way encouraged or even wished for any of his fans to become like him. He made sure people knew that with certain passages in songs like “Role Model”, “My Name Is” and many others.

There were two big aspects of the research in the documentary that really stuck with me and I have given them a lot of thought.

The first one would be how they spoke of depression and how it affects boys and girls differently. They said how with girls, the regular early signs of depression are more known as keeping to oneself, not going out, and so on and the signs in boys are related to anger issues. “The more a man is depressed the louder he becomes”, he picks more fights, he gets angry easily and so on. This information stuck with me because I deal with guys with “anger issues” daily and I have always been aware that they aren’t actually violent people, they just need to unload their feelings and this is the only way they know how. Right after watching the documentary I contacted a lot of my guy friends and I told them I’m sorry that society shaped them in that way, I told them it’s okay to cry and to show their feelings and I know it’s hard, I told them they’re good enough and they don’t need to prove themselves to anyone.

The second aspect of the research shown in the documentary that stuck to me is about the physical contact in boys. They showed how when boys reach puberty they all crave to find a friend to whom they can unload and share their feelings. They show how hard it is for boys to hug and show each other any kind of physical loving support because of the way they were taught that only “faggots and sissies” hug. This relates a lot to one of Carlos Andres Gomez’s experiences he mentions in his book, about the physical contact with guys he experienced in foreign countries and not in America. The documentary helped me better understand why physical contact between boys is very very uncomfortable to them, because of the way they are taught how wrong it is. Something interesting that I noticed about his experience is that, in other, less economically and industrially advanced countries, the physical contact between man isn’t seen so badly. This made me wonder if the progression of the country we live in has anything to do with it, because so far, my own experience has been similar. I come from a less advanced country and there, little brothers and boys are encouraged to hold hands and hug and sleep in the same bed and there is nothing wrong with that. I think that because America is so corporate, everyone is stuck in their own careers and lives, they forget the importance of human contact.

I will end on this note and hopefully give you something to think about.

A man that inspires me?

If you had asked me this question when I was seven, I probably would have chosen my father or uncle. But as I grew older and met different people, a new, much closer family took shape. The man I am presenting you today is one of my closest friends, and considered part of my own little family. His name is William, I have known him for years and the thing about him is, he doesn’t quite fit into society. He’s always had trouble keeping a job, he’s had trouble with girls, consummation, finances and ,in general, doing what he is “supposed” to do. Most of his family and friends started to lose hope in him when he turned 18 and still couldn’t get on the right track and at some point, everyone in his entourage thought he was never going to make it in life. But in the last year, he has grown so much, he started his own company and it has exploded! What is so amazingly inspirational about him, is that he never did this for himself. He created a brand, his brand is the organiser of social events (rave parties) and he hires local DJs and local photographers and makes barely any profit. Every time I hear him talk about it, his eyes sparkle with joy because he is helping people realize their dreams, he is helping local artists grow in the community and this is what makes him the happiest. He is an amazing inspiration to be because of the nobility of his dreams and the hard work he puts into making them come true. Out of absolutely nothing, he succeeded to make a small family of local artists, including me, that all help each other grow. When I am with him he makes me believe in myself like no one has ever done, I am eternally grateful to have him in my life and I have always, and will always, believe in him!

Hi everyone, I grew up next to the ocean so I am in love with sea food ❤