Lovers and Fighters | Section 22

Schools are supposed to be an educational and social place for students to learn and interact with others. However, how come students don’t feel safe at school? It is important to know that this issue does not only happen on male or female students. But, it also happens between students and some cases also involve teachers. Yet, if the numbers are continuously increasing years by years, how come “77% of schools have reported not a single incident”? (CBC News)

 Before diving into the topic, I want to explain the reasons why I chose this topic. First, I chose this topic because I consider this topic to be fairly relatable because we’re all students. Second, I chose this topic because school violence is one of the most critical problems in which it doesn’t only affect student’s physical health, but it also torments their psychological and mental health. But, I feel like schools are not fully taking actions to protect their students, meanwhile they are more focused on creating a good reputation and image to the community. Additionally, schools play an essential role in student’s life. Because students are mostly spending their times in school, the negative experiences suffered in school could lead to serious future damages. Therefore, I feel the need to bring more attention to the topic of school violence. Throughout the paper, I’ll based my arguments and facts on secondary research such as the “School Violence” documentary and I’ll also further support with several in-class readings.

First of all, school violence doesn’t limit to only physical injuries. It also includes serious issues such as sexual assault, mental harms, bullying, etc… According to the documentary, “41 per cent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school; and one in four students first experienced sexual harassment or assault before Grade 7.” (CBC News) Looking at this numbers, it is frightening how this only represents a portion of the entire world. In other words, if we gather the data and statistics from countries to countries, how enormous would the numbers be? Also, while analyzing these numbers, a question has arisen: what causes school violence? Many argues that it is caused by the diversity of races and ethnicity. Other might say that it is caused by gender-based norms and so on… However, why should factors such as gender, religion, race considered as a metric to measure a person’s vulnerability to get hurt? “Social scientists use the term “racialization”, or “racialized identities”, to remind us that we are socially conditioned to observe differences in people, to group people according to those differences, and to hold beliefs about what those differences mean.” (Kwan-Lafond 225) To put it differently, we as humans, we’re the ones that have associate the different labels and prejudices on victims which has made them more vulnerable than others.

Now, let’s further analyze the concept of gender-based violence. As mentioned previously, results have shown that “41 per cent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school”. Looking at the statistics, we directly see a connection between young boys and violence. Why? According to Kimmel, “Competition is one component of masculinity that seems to contribute to boys’ and men’s difficulty to achieving relational intimacy.” (Kimmel 165) Traditional male gender roles have been carrying the label of “real man”. Since a young age, men have taught to be independent and to resolve everything with their fist. Therefore, they would avoid everything that would involve emotional sharing. In other words, they believe that communicating is not an option to resolving a problem. So, they express their anger through physical violence such as the use of weapon, threatening, etc… Examining the numbers, almost half of the boys have been physically assaulted. This percentage makes me draw a correlation that a major reason of it has to do with masculinity. Young boys in school obey under a hierarchical system. In other words, boys would form and associate themselves in gangs in groups to prevent isolation. To do so, they have to challenge themselves to be dominant and independent to be accepted. Everything is based under the ideology of power and control. If they are too weak, they would be rejected and be seen as a sissy. “Violence is often the single most evident marker of manhood.” (Kimmel 148) The pressures of the label “masculinity” that society has repetitively forced on boys have led them into toxic behaviours. Why is that? Imagine the amount of pressures that you have to suffer as a boy. First, you can’t show any signs of being weak or “girly”. To put it in another way, you can’t be emotional or share your feelings with others. On top of that, you need to always keep the figure and impression of a strong, reliable, independent men no matter if it’s in school, with friends or at home. At school and with friends, you want them to perceive you as a “real man” in order to be accepted and to have the feeling of belongingness. At home, you want to meet you father’s expectation on you, so you’ll toughen up to get his approval. Therefore, when can men truly be themselves? Relating it to the documentary “Man Enough”, Tony Porter mentioned “we talk a lot about this man box, in the box is everything such as be though, be aggressive, be dominating…”. Similarly, in the “School violence” documentary, boys have commented “I was told…I needed to toughen up”. It is not a coincidence that terms such as man up, be a real man, don’t be a sissy, etc… occurs in many different platforms. They are actually signs telling us that men are suffering and that they need help. Furthermore, there are studies telling us that “young boy’s sadness and anger have led them to feel violent.” (Niobe Way)

On the other end of the spectrum, the statistics show that “26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school”. As we could see, the nature behind these two issues are gender-based. Despite being in the 21^st century, women have always been seen as inferior to men. Many women are often objectified as sexual object. In other words, they are seen as reproduction slaves. Therefore, many men were taught to be misogynistic. Since men usually associate women with sexual activities, most of the men wouldn’t bother to ask for the women’s consent. These beliefs and ideology have been passed on from descendent to descendent which has caused that women are still the target and victims of sexual harassment. Based on the documentary, “1 in 4 girls say that they face unwanted sexual touching and grabbing and 3 in 5 girls didn’t report to school because they are aware that nothing will happen.” Looking at the numbers, it is ridiculous how young girls that haven’t even met the age of 15 are being sexual assaulted by men. On top of that, it is depressing knowing that more than 60% of them don’t report to school because they are aware that schools won’t take any actions. Many of the victims have said that after coming forward, they would be the ones who are criticized and punished. Why should victims be the ones who get the blames? Considering the enormous courage that they need to gather to speak up, why are schools still ignoring their situation? Young girls have always been seen as weak and vulnerable because of their gender and of their biological differences. However, knowing this, why is schools not implementing any measures to protect students from gender-based violence?

In conclusion, while school should be a place to learn and to socialize, students are actually scared of going to school. Students are feeling unsafe and unprotected. According to the documentary “School violence”, Jayden Trudell has argued that ‘school is more survival related, I’m actually more worried about the kids than the grades”. Knowing this, why should an educational establishment be seen as a survival maze rather than a comforting learning environment? What should we do to make students feel accepted and safe at school? The first approach or measure that schools should take is probably to be more transparent about their data. This is the first step to reducing violence because we need to identify the real problem before being able to implement measures. On top of that, schools should probably change or manage their public image. To put it differently, nowadays, most of the students associate schools with discomfort and danger. Therefore, the first step to correcting that should probably changing their image in student’s heart. To do so, schools should implement programs in which it will demonstrate to students that they truly care about student’s well-being. Also, as mentioned above, educational establishment should care less about their reputation and release critical information that would actually help the violence in school situation. Lastly, is it important to respect others no matter their gender, religion and races. We are all unique and we all have flaws, therefore we should learn to accept others to be able to live collectively.

Works Cited

CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088.

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.

Danielle Kwan-Lafond. Racialized Masculinities in Canada

Jere, Kate, et al. “School-Related Gender-Based Violence Is a Major Barrier to Education Equality.” Global Partnership for Education, 13 May 2015, www.globalpartnership.org/blog/school-related-gender-based-violence-major-barrier-education-equality.

Kimmel, Michael. Masculinity as Homophobia. 1994.

“Man Enough Episode 4 – #MeToo.” Facebook Watch, http://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2129001024007697.

“Violence in Schools: Causes, Effects and Prevention.” UKEssays.com, http://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/the-history-of-school-violence-education-essay.php.

Way, Niobe. “Why Are Boys So Violent?” HuffPost, HuffPost, 22 July 2013, http://www.huffpost.com/entry/boys-mental-health_b_3263318.

“Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 9 Nov. 2019, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402.

Schools, ranging from elementary and CEGEP, contain more violence than we are aware of. Schools and school boards are more concerned about their reputation, so they keep fights and violence in the dark. Jennifer McGuire, an author, wrote an article involving school violence and why CBC is taking interest in this topic. She mentioned that the team at Marketplace was looking into students being physically and mentally harmed at school. They realized that most students experience forms of violence without seeking help or telling anyone in an authoritative position. A more comforting approach has to be taken in order for students to share their experiences and confide in people who could potentially help them.

For the sake of CBC, the firm Mission Research conducted a survey. 4,065 students, between the ages of 14 to 21, participated in this survey. More than half of the responders were at least 14 years old, but younger than 18 years old. In a direct quote from the article, “41 percent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 percent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school,” (CBC). However, it was also stated that, in Ontario, 77% of schools have no reported violent incidents (School Violence, 9:09). This is evidence that secrets are being kept, in order to not harm a school’s reputation. We need to care more about the safety of the students and victims, rather than how ‘good’ the school looks to the public. Many parents are clueless about the reality of violence at the school their child(ren) attend. The data needs to be accurate and shared so that a solution is found. 

As we learned from the previous statistics, 41% of boys and 26% of girls experience violence at school. The violence presents itself in different ways, based on the gender of the individual. “Institutions are themselves gendered. Institutions create gendered normative standards and express a gendered institutional logic, and are major factors in the reproduction of gender inequality,” (Kimmel, 2-3). For boy students, while emotional and verbal violence may occur, violence in schools is most often in forms of physical contact. I believe this is due to the fact that men have to fight in order to be considered masculine or manly. Sadly, the violence girls experience in school is often of a sexual nature and considered unwanted harassment. 

The amount of students who have experienced violence in schools higher than it should be and not much is being done about this probelm. Schools and school boards are not exposing or even recording incidents of violence. In my opinion, school boards do not even know how to deal with these situations. The problem cannot be solved if the people in charge do not know how to deal with it. Some students do come forward and they still do not receive the help that they feel is necessary.

Students should feel safe when they attend school, they are there to learn and not experience violence. It is also worried that schools do not do enough to prevent incidents. CBC is working hard to investigate more situations involving school violence. Personally, as a student who has experienced violence in school, I feel as though more should have been done. I did reach out to someone with authority, and close to nothing was done in this situation. The schools really do care more about their reputation, rather than the problem. In many cases and in mine, the school is very quick to swipe events like this under the rug.

Resources:

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.

Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools, CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402.

“How To Fight For Safer Schools.” School Violence. CBC, 24 October 2019.

Introduction

Different reports collected from various schools are in agreement that violence is becoming rampant in many institutions. Indeed, violence happening in schools is the leading form of abuse against children. It takes varying types ranging from psychological to physical abuse. Violence in the leading schools occurs through attributes of repression, bullying, and intimidation. Despite the increase in the number of such cases in schools, most of the students do not report some of the violent incidents. They have expressed concerns that the authorities lack the mechanism of solving violence cases. Additionally, the police do not take them seriously.

Any form of violence in schools is detrimental for students, and the best solution is the unity of stakeholders.

Forms of Violence at School

Despite being in the 21st century, gender-based violence is still on the rise. The report of the survey conducted on 4000 students in Canada has given the revelation that one in every seven girls has experienced sexual assault. This is a worrying trend in schools since the aspect of reporting does not capture all the cases (Shapiro 45). Several examples are not reported for fear of victimization. Others do not report because the administration lacks clear guidelines for handling such cases. Men are also increasingly becoming victims of sexual violence. They undergo prejudice and rejection because of gender. The most depressing is the aspect of rising violence in schools committed by women.

Studies from Canada relay that 78 cases of violence were reported in schools. Further, the report asserts that 154 female teachers and two male teachers are under investigation for committing such crimes (McGuire 2). This means that women lead to committing violence in schools both in Italy and Canada. When considering 63 cases in Italy, it emerged that 81% of the evidence reflected violence in the form of maltreatment. Moreover, 19% of the victims reported having experienced a psychological form of abuse. Further reports from plan international have approximated the number of students experiencing violence yearly to be 246 million (McGuire 2). Another leading cause of violence in schools is identified as religious reasons. Today, schools are characterized by rising spiritual practices that are borrowed from different religions and sects. Yes, these various sects are involved with school violence as they fight for followers. The leadership of these groups is on the quest to extort money through their terms. They dictate and manipulate the commandments for their benefit. Through the use of confusion and dark messages, they spread fear to the students and force other reluctant students into doing their will. In this regard, religion has become a source of violence in schools.

Psychological violence stemming from the disruption of emotional balance has also been on the rise in the leading schools. Psychological abuse manifests on the restriction of ordinary activities of the students. Denigration and ridicule due to race, religion, or financial capability is another form of violence in schools. Further, the uses of threats, including intimidating languages, violate the rights of the students. Hence, they are classified as forms of rising violence in schools (Shapiro, 27). Discrimination has also persisted amongst the students and has been regarded as another leading cause of violence. Certainly, it has emerged from the CBC report that a good number of students do not report cases of violence committed against them (McGuire 1). Lack of reporting has been attributed to a hostile environment, and CBC News is enacting measures to help in restoring change and hope to the students.

Preventing Violence in Schools

Despite the rising rate of violence in schools, some measures can be taken to reduce it. One of the steps is to open communication channels with the students. When the students are engaged in communication, they disclose detrimental information about the school. This information relates to violence, drug consumption, discrimination, and their overall ideas about the schools.

Setting guidelines and limits for the children helps them understand what is expected of them. The consequences of not following the rules must also be communicated. Indeed, family rules are essential in developing a discipline for the students. Training from home translates into school discipline. This contributes to the realization of reduced violence (Matthew J. Mayer, 52). Discipline reduces force because the students are accustomed to doing the right thing at home and school.

Additionally, solving violence in schools calls for the intervention of parents, teachers, and the community. Indeed, parents must understand their boundaries and intervene to restore discipline upon their children. It is the parents’ responsibility to talk to their children when they exhibit a poor attitude that poses potential harm to other students. Monitoring and evaluation of children for potentially bad habits will significantly reduce the prevalence of violence in schools.

Finally, parents should join the violence prevention coalition because this can reduce its prevalence by 30%. The violence prevention coalition is a community-based program aimed at creating safe schools and communities at large (McGuire 2). Indeed, they work together with the schools and parents to identify potential disparities and sources of violence. Additionally, they also identify possible solutions to the problems in schools. This has significantly contributed to the reduction of violence in schools.

Conclusion

Violence in schools is arising disparity that needs to be addressed. There are different forms of manifestation of violence, but the consequences remain detrimental to the students. Records have shown that women are increasingly participating in oppressing students. Despite the cause of violence, critical concerns have been raised regarding solving them. Yes, solving cases of abuse in schools is a collective effort between students, teachers, parents, and the community. When all these players come together, solutions are imminent.

Works Cited

Matthew J. Mayer, ‎Shane R. Jimerson. School Safety and Violence Prevention: Science, Practice, Policy. United States: American Psychological Association, 2019.

McGuire, Jennifer. “Why CBC started looking into violence in schools.” 24 10 2019. CBC. 21 4 2020.

Shapiro, Harvey. The Wiley Handbook on Violence in Education: Forms, Factors, and Preventions. Washington, DC: John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

Violence has been a serious issue for a long time. Young teens and adults have used violence as propaganda, to establish the ranks in a class system invented to make everyone feel bad about themselves. Masculinity is an expectation, it’s distancing yourself from the innate According to society men have about three options to prove their manhood: fighting, sex and stoicism. Not only that, but these concepts are constantly around them, they are in movies, in sports, in school and in their personal lives. Masculinity is one of these most restrictive concepts in society. These restrictions create a weak environment for boys to grow up. This weak environment leads to an overload of undealt emotions that lead to self destruction and potentially violent outburst on the rest of society.       

By insinuating fighting, you insinuate violence. People like Brian Burke and Don Cherry believe that fighting is part of the fabric of hockey. And as some put “hockey with fighting? We might as well be figure skating”. It’s so funny to think that the only excuse people have for allowing fighting in hockey is that it’s been that way forever, is just so irritating. And don’t even get me started on, Don Cherry saying if we don’t allow fighting, anger is going to manifest itself in different ways, how about letting these men know that in these cases their actions don’t speak louder than words and that maybe the feelings of anger they sense are really just feelings of stress and frustration, and tell them that those emotions are valid and permissible since they are human. Not only that, children are great imitators, they learn through observation, so saying that these fights do nothing is a total lie. Even the players know what they’re doing, and even if they would prefer not to do it, they still do. It’s the name of the game. But if the death of one person is not enough to draw a line, then we are in way worse condition than I thought. What does living by this ‘Code’ do for these athletes? What happens if they choose not to fight? Do they lose their position or spot on the team? Do they automatically become a target from the opposing teams? Like what happens? Why do they even allow these fights to happen in the first place? And is skating just a sideshow then? Is hockey even about skill? Now, I understand that many other sports like boxing and karate all have fighting at their core but the principle is different. There is no malicious intent in boxing. These fighters do not fight people, they fight opponents. There are probably more regulations for boxing then there are for hockey at this point. Now I like the idea of players protecting their most valuable player/friend but I believe that this violence is organized. These players know that in order to play the game, you need to play by the rules and if the rules say fight is the way to go, then they’re going to do just that. Now fighting may be entertaining but it does nothing for the actual teams. In my opinion, it actually decreases my appreciation for sports in general. Now my bias shines through as I’ve never played a game of hockey in my life but I think I know enough about integrity to understand the contradiction in saying that violence in one form makes it less likely that violence will happen under another.    

The rise of physical and sexual assault in school is crazy, about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men are affected by sexual violence. Only a fraction of women speak up, even much less for men and when survivors do speak up they forever live a life of shame and fear. Which is not made easier by the fact that most of the time the people responsible walk away scotch free. Violence in schools often goes undocumented out fear that it may smear the school’s reputation. Strange, how an institution responsible for ensuring the safety and wellness of children is doing the exact opposite. In the CBC Gem documentary, all of the kids felt as though they were pushed aside and almost told to toughen up. As if getting the crap beaten out of you or getting raped is something one just ‘gets over’. The schools do nothing, which is a huge slap in the face for victims of violence because it says “we have better things to do then take care of your self inflicted issues that you must have provoked because no student from our school would do such a thing”. Just like in hockey, they allow the violence to prevail. School authorities use their energy hiding these issues rather than solving them, which makes these issues larger as now people are getting away with basically anything. It’s kind of comforting knowing that you’re not the only one being swept under the rug but then again it’s super disappointing knowing that resources are being missed used in the education system. It’s almost like they tend more to the perpetrator’s needs than those of the victim. It’s like, imagine getting shot in the knee and only given a bandaid. There doing the bare minimum, at most.      

Men get too caught up with being a ‘man’ and they forget that they are human beings. The patriarchy has created a list of criteria for what a man is supposed to be and if you don’t meet those criterias, well guess what? You’re not a man, according to this very old, closed minded testimony made by a bunch of old, white, blind men who neglected their own identity in order to be ‘successful’ if you liked to call it that. And believe me when I tell you that deep down, those men probably died miserable. These criteria are the “doing for dummies” of books. One article that stands out to me when talking about all this is Kimmel’s “Masculinity” in which he describes what “doing gender” is. He states “Doing gender is a lifelong process of performances”. That’s right performing. Not living. Not being. These boys are trying to survive in a world that wants them to fail. Something else he says that is super relevant is: “If authenticity for gender rests not in a discoverable nature but in someone else’s proclamation, then the power to proclaim something else is available”. Acting in the way that is commended instead of in the way in which one desires to. Moreso, Kinnel uses the term “masculinities” instead of the singular term, and he does to illustrate the wide range of ways to be masculine and how different those variations are in different societies. Now imagine if we combine all those variations under one umbrella term “masculine”. Not only would it allow for a more comprehensive vision when it comes to what a man is. Both of these documentaries showcase the very result of these binding rules that men follow, allowing this violence to penetrate their very mind makes them think that their emotions of sadness and duress should be channelled into feelings of anger and revolt. The system that allows dangerous men to get away with heinous crimes is the exact same system that let’s down the men who don’t “make the criteria”. Breaking down toxic masculinity is essential to repair our broken system. Showing men that these qualities aren’t feminine, they’re human. And that there is nothing wrong with being just that.                        

According to the documentary School Violence, there is an enormous amount of physical bullying which happens and it is thrown under the rug. 77% of Ontario schools report no incident of school violence (school violence 9:10-9:13), which is ironic because it is inaccurate and false.  It is also ironic in the sense that “men who happen to have “low education and low job offers repeatedly turn to illegal activities”(“Fathers and Fathering” 184). Clearly, the kids who do the hurting, have some sort of education yet turn to bullying as an act of rebellion.

In comparison to The Code, fighting is considered a part of the game. It took awhile for the hockey players who are fathers, to realize they would not want their children in a fight. The reason behind this is because “from the earliest days of a male’s childhood, cultures bombard children with messages about how to be masculine. Meaning, they must act dominant, independent, tough, and unemotional.” (“Defining Men’s Studies 2”)

What shook me most was the story of the nine year old, who was touched and abused. I found this absolutely disgusting and the worst thing was, the institution did not take correct repercussions. Thus, “1 in 4 girls experience unwanted touching and sexual abuse and 1 in 7 girls say they were sexually assaulted by another student (school violence 11:26-11:41). This correlates with a phrase that was stated by Tony Porter in Man Enough. He said that “violence has evolved. Misogyny has evolved.” Therefore, violence is portrayed around the media as a positive thing, to fight for what you want. However, when it comes to real life, physical fighting will not do you any good. 

Aside from how violence impacts children, it also impacts a person both mentally and physically. Fighting in hockey causes concussions which eventually can cause dementia, depression as well as suicidal thoughts. We do live in a time and place where we have medication to treat many problems, but in this case, it is not reversible. The reason why fighting occurres in hockey is not only due to entertainment purposes, but also because this is the job of hockey players (The Code). 53% of workers happen to be a man according to 2010 statistics (“Men at Work” 233) . Therefore, men are considered breadwinners, for the most part. The fact that hockey players make money from playing and fighting, thrive hockey players to continue that habit. 

In conclusion, school violence and fighting in hockey occur due to numerous reasons, whether it is to be an ideal masuline figure” or to act as the breadwinner, men have little choice as to how they choose to act since, their personalities and behaviours are chosen for them. 

Works Cited 

“How to fight for safer schools.” School Violence. CBC, 24 Oct. 2019.

Kilmartin and Smiler. “Defining Men’s Studies.” The Masculine Self, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 1-7, Cornwall On Hudson, Accessed 25 Apr. 2020 

Kilmartin and Smiler. “Fathers and Fathering.” The Masculine Self, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 180-197, Cornwall On Hudson, Accessed 25 Apr. 2020 

Kilmartin and Smiler. “Men at Work: Jobs, Careers and Masculinity.” The Masculine Self, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 220-235, Accessed 25 Apr. 2020 

“The Code.” CBC, 26 Mar. 2010.

Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools | CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

The CBC school violence investigation in 2019 release that 41 per cent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school; and one in four students first experienced sexual harassment or assault before Grade 7. (CBC News, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402 ) Depending on the data, boys are more likely to face peer-on-peer bullying, while girls seem to tend to suffer sexual violence. The school violence in Canada is rife and gender-based. 

First of all, I begin my discussion by focusing on notions behind boys’ peer-to-peer school violent behaviour. In case of Jayden(CBC News, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-marketplace-1.5224865 ), some boys, like with full preparation, took the video of their crime while other boys brutally attacked Jayden down. As a result, Jayden was seriously injured, brain bleed, a fractured skull, the broken bone in his ear and hearing loss. Obviously, the attackers show no empathy to their peers. On the contrary, they break the school rule of non violence to flaunt their aggressiveness and show their power and superiority among peers by bullying other students in school. This conforms to stereotypes of masculinity. Masculinity is characterized by a willingness to take (physical) risks and become violent if necessary. (Kilmartin, 2019)

Then come to discuss the gender norms behind sexual abuse.  “One in four girls surveyed said they had personally faced unwanted sexual contact”  and one girl complained: “A boy exposed his penis and ejaculated on the clothing of a group of girls who were chatting during lunch hour,” said another. (CBC News, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-marketplace-1.5224865 ) Apparently, the boys engaged in sexual violence treat girls unequally, and they even can’t realize it is criminal to touch girls’s body unceremoniously or sexually abuse girls. Impacted by stereotypes masculinity, as Kilmartin says in his book that boys’ interactions are often geared toward competition, they are barraged with messages that they should not act like girls, and they are encouraged to value girls and women only as sexual objects.( Kilmartin, 2019)

Facing with the crimes of the boys who are misled by problematic masculinity, Parents, education institutes, media and the whole society need to pay serious attention to it and take actions to keep schools safer. Parents are responsible to offer positive and healthy concept to their kids, such as equality between people, awareness of oneself and other people, etc.. In particular, the parents of boys should let them understand a real man is one who loves himself and the world, is someone who can be the best of himself and make the world better. Education institutes are responsible for reporting the school violence happening in the school to Ministry of Education, parents and students. Also education institutes should organize professional guidance counsellors to track and coach both victims and attackers in violent incidents. Media play an important role on switching problematic masculinity to healthy masculinity. Dr. Russo Johnson and Dr. Dafna Lemish reveal in their new research that amounted to nearly 600 shows on broadcasters in Canada are gender unequal. They suggest that gender balance and diversity, and a closer look at human characters should be in Kids’TV.( https://loversandfighterwinter202022photography.photo.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/9778e-thelandscapeofchildren.pdf%27s+TV.pdf)

In conclusion, school violence is rising; it has been hurting thousands of students and will very likely traumatize them as long as a whole life. Problematic masculinity is one of the most important causes to school violence. Parents, education institutes and all the society as a whole should work together to help boys to establish healthy masculinity, to help kids to learn to become the best oneself, and finally to build a safer schools.

Reference:

1. Kilmartin, Christopher, and Andrew P. Smiler. “Defining Men’s Studies.” The Masculine Self, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019, p6.

2. 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.171.

First, I chose this topic on bullying and school violence because it is a delicate and highly relatable situation of everybody while growing up, especially me. I lived most of my life in a predominantly white city in a way. So being a brown kid with a culture, morals and values different the majority at that time caused many problems for me growing up. But ever since I took this class I realized that my problems with bullying was because of who I was culturally and racially but also the ideology of masculinity had a huge factor in this. I will talk about the documentary about school, the possible applications masculinity in school violence and my personal experience with school violence and bullying.

In the documentary, the news reporter was talking about how violence, such fighting or assault is a constant incident in school. Therefore, I started thinking what could be cause of this brutal urge of violence in these young kids, mostly boys. It is possible that these boys have learned from their fathers that in order to be a man, you have to impose dominance and brute strength. This is quite possible, in Fathers and Fathering in The Masculine Self, the author says, “From a masculinity perspective, authoritative parenting may difficult to achieve because emotional warmth […] due to the limited emotional vocabulary and framework men typically develop.” (Kilmartin 186) Which means that young boys learn what it means to “be a man” and develop these shallow or violent behaviors from their fathers, who learned it from their fathers. We can easily see this in the documentary that we have watched in class, for example, the interviewees at the church talk how their actions in the past that contain violence and bullying are learned and encouraged by their fathers or family members. So it is possible, that fights in high school are caused because they want to show there strength, instead of vulnerability.

In my case, in school, I wasn’t the type of person to show off or being obnoxious to other to show I’m a strong kid, due to that I was picked a lot for the way I would behave in school. I played the same sports as everybody else but I was the non-violent type and the type of kid that would easily express themselves. I always thought it was because I looked different from others. It was definitely one of the reasons, but I realized that the way I was behaving in school reflected on the other boys in school, which put me in trouble. I realized from this documentary where they would talk about the behaviors of these bullies and it made me realize that I went through the same thing as those victims and I finally understood why it was like this for me growing up because of this humanities class. Masculinity is truly the cause on school violence and bullying because this ideology is basically saying that you should not be someone who is vulnerable, because you look “weak” and be somebody strong and violent if necessary in order to be “strong”. It was at that moment I realized that being weak and strong are two is different for everybody. As would Kilmartin would say about in-expressiveness and independence in men, “Men should be strong, sturdy, independent, and in control of themselves, even in the most difficult situations. Further, they should solve problems without help, keep their feelings to themselves, and disdain any display of weakness.” (Kilmartin 6) It was completely mind blowing when I realized the connection between school violence and masculinity…

This hits me a lot, because this class and this documentary made me remind many things, horrible memories when I was in elementary school. I kept asking myself when I was young, what was the reason that I was a target in school. We notice that bullies in films and in real life of course, pick on students that are more vulnerable and show emotions. The reason bullies pick fights and bother these “type” of people is because it’s that masculinity mentality that they have learned from their masculinity parenting. Remember, masculinity is anti-feminist, where it contradicts and encourages men from being vulnerable, emotional and having the ability to not resort to violence if provoked. So the first clip we saw in the documentary when the bully slams the kids to the ground, we don’t really know what could’ve been the reason, but it’s possible that the bully thought that the poor kid did not see the masculinity that he learned and took the opportunity to show his power.  Kimmel says in Masculinity as Homophobia, he says, “Homophobia is the fear that other man will unmask us, emasculate us, reveal to us and the world that we do not measure up, that we are not real men.” (Kimmel 147) This results as behaving erratically towards other men, violent actions and homophobic acts such as saying slurs, which I can relate while growing up…

I would just like to conclude that school violence is not tolerable at all. The kid who does boxing after his recovery from his brutal fight (I forgot his name), he mentions how the school administration is not fixing this properly and makes him feel as if the school is not standing up for these victims. I felt the same way when I was in elementary, and I am angry that even in 2020, after all these years of anti-bullying ads, protests and intervention that since I graduated from elementary that it is still the same or in some schools, the situation is getting worse. It is disgusting that some schools are more worried about their reputation than helping their students.

Being a student myself, violence in schools seemed like a more personal topic at first. I have witnessed and experienced verbal and mental abuse in my life so it felt like this topic may be easier to understand. However, while watching the documentary and reading through the article, I realized I have only seen a fraction of what truly happens in schools. The results of CBC’s surveys are absolutely heartbreaking: 41% of boys are physically assaulted in high school, 26% of girls experience unwanted sexual contact and 50% of students do not report the abuse witnessed or experienced. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402). Why is it that these numbers are so high? Why is it that these incidents are happening over and over again? I could not begin to wrap my head around the fact that so many children are being harmed; I felt the same shock as some of the unaware parents from the documentary!

I started thinking about the bullying boys experience first. Jayden Trudell was attacked by fellow students on school property and suffered horrendous injuries. After taking lots of time off from his studies to focus on recovery, the boy made it back to school. When asked in the documentary if he felt safe, even with his attackers gone, he simply replied no. The school did their part in expelling the bullies given the violent nature of this attack but did not seem to have changed their overall procedures for victims. Jayden still feels unsafe while trying to learn and has taken up boxing in a way to defend himself. This ONE case shows us two things: boys will continue to be violent and schools will continue to not do enough. The documentary included a few sentences that other victims of violence have said. The one that stood out to me was the boy who went to his administration for help and was told to “toughen up”. (https://gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088). This phrase is one that we have seen and heard over and over again in our class. Boys are taught from a young age to behave a certain way to avoid seeming weak. I believe that school boards are enabling these damaging behaviours all under the umbrella saying of “boys will be boys”. 

In Kilmartin and Smiler’s “Defining Men’s Studies”, we learnt about the set of traits and roles of men in the United States. I believe that this would also include Canada since the two share the same Western culture. In terms of behaviours, men are supposed to be: tough, dominant, competitive and take control. We also learnt that the few acceptable emotions to display are anger and lust. High school is a very defining time in boys and girls lives. It’s a place where you can quickly climb and fall down a “social hierarchy”. The boys who play sports are seen as popular whereas the boys who are in other clubs, for example, would not have the same status. This fits right into the author’s box of “status and achievement” (Kilmartin and Smiler, 5). Winning, whether it’s in a fight, on the field or over a woman, has been taught as a very important thing to these boys. Fighting each other establishes dominance and because people have been ignoring the issue for a long time, they continue to give boys slaps on the wrists and excuse it with “you know how boys are”. 

I mentioned the idea of “winning” a woman in the previous paragraph and this is where the violence of young girls in schools comes into play. Boys in high school try to “get” the girls and unfortunately many young women fall victim to sexual violence. ¼ girls face unwanted sexual touching or grabbing AT SCHOOL and 1/7 girls say they have been sexually assaulted by fellow students. (https://gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088). These numbers are absolutely jarring. In the documentary we see that 3 separate girls came forward in identifying a male student as their rapist and the school suspended the boy for 2 days. These girls now had to continue going to school with a person who harmed them in a terrible way, this is not fair. They should not have to be scared to go learn and acquire their education. School boards need to step up in protecting their female students against male students. Boys need to have the man boxed their taught dismantled because it allows room for these toxic behaviours to sprout. Schools need to do a better job at helping and BELIEVING women when they come forward. They also need to do a better job at allowing boys to come forward with their physical violence. We must normalize letting men talk about their pain and abuse and not respond to them with “man up”. 

I constantly think about the episode of Justin Baldoni’s “Man Enough” that we watched in class. There were grown men sitting together acknowledging that change needs to happen in our society because the culture we have is TOXIC. Although the self reflecting and discussions they had were great, this type of realization needs to happen years earlier. School boards have to acknowledge the role they play in changing as well. If students felt more comfortable with coming forward and actually saw change in procedure, bullying and assault would slowly become less frequent in schools. Change needs to start somewhere and a good place to look has to be letting boys act however they feel and stop enforcing roles onto them. We also can’t push girls aside, more support needs to be offered for victims and we need to do much better at providing protection. Same goes for male victims of physical assault and sexual assault. The fact that they would come forward shows that they have exponentially more strength than their attackers and this needs to be recognized not ignored. The Marketplace documentary shed light on the huge amount of violence in schools; society needs to learn that violence is not an excusable course of action.

I’ve noticed from my school experience that more violence is visible during high school years. As boys become men, the display of power and domination is almost inevitable. Teenagers come to develop the “manbox” characteristic: aggressiveness (Kilmartin 6). It exists between boys but also between boys and girls. The difficulty in boys’ relationships with girls sometimes intensifies in the form of sexual harassment or assault. Acts of domination are shown on the weak or the “different” that are predominantly the easiest targets. If you happen to have red hair, dark skin, are too fat or too skinny or have any other “special characteristic”, bullying is not very far. In fact, bullying is “a pattern of repeated aggressive behavior with negative intent, directed from one youth to another where there is a power imbalance” (Canadian Safe School Network). Let’s explore what the Marketplace investigations reveal about such violence in schools and how their research backs up the results.

The team at Marketplace investigated students harming others physically and emotionally. Those kids often don’t tell authorities what they are going through; close to 50 per cent of high school students don’t report what they witness or experience. They discovered that for cases that were reported, school boards across Canada didn’t precisely document information, avoiding them to structure solutions to this terrible situation. With the help of specialists, Marketplace conducted an independent survey on students who’d experienced homophobic or racial insults as well as physical or sexual assaults. It included 4,000 youngsters in their school years from elementary to high school or CEGEP. “The results are stark: 41 per cent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school; and one in four students first experienced sexual harassment or assault before Grade 7.” Furthermore, more than one in seven girls reveal being sexually assaulted by another student.

Boys aren’t likely to express emotions with their male friends. It’s understood at a young age that behaving in an inconsistent gender way are most likely to be rejected by their friends (Kilmartin and Smiler 168). The objective is to control the fear of any possible humiliation. Men structure their lives around relationships and access to power making sure manhood is equated with power over other men and women. The “typical masculinity” is once again revealed in this Marketplace survey. Men showing power, domination and their difficulty in their relationships with women. It goes back to the hegemonic masculinity concept popularized by R.W. Connell; certain practices guarantee the dominant social position of men, and the subordinate social position of women (Connel 183).

Watching Marketplace’s investigation once again brings to light the potential dominant nature of boys in their relationships with other boys and girls. We must do our best to teach boys that violence is not an option in our society; it only brings pain, anger and suffering. All together, let’s transform that into happiness, understanding and compassion!

REFERENCES

Kilmartin, Christopher, and Andrew P. Smiler. “Defining Men’s Studies.” The Masculine Self, Sloan Publishing (2019): 1–7.

“About Bullying.” Canadian Safe School Network, https://cssn.me/about-bullying. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.

Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools | CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.

Kilmartin, Christopher, and Andrew P. Smiler. “No Man Is an Island: Men in Relationships.” The Masculine Self, Sloan Publishing (2019): 161–171.

Connel, Robert W. “Gender and power.” Society, The Person and Sexual Politics, California (1987).

I don’t see myself as a political person and I don’t like to get myself involved in any political arguments ,but surprisingly I found myself very interested in the topics that Lucy and Jen discussed during the presentation of climate change, pipelines, and violence against women.
It caught my attention when they talked about how Indigenous women and girls are representing16% of all female homicides in Canada, while constituting only 4% of the female population in Canada,and how 80% of people displaced by climate change are women.knowing that women are excluded from making decisions about climate change although they are the highest percentage of people who are affected by climate change.
Throughout this course we learned a lot of men stereotypes who take advantage of the power they have to achieve their plans and uses their power over the people who doesn’t have any power or who are ignored by the government or society.after this presentation I learned a lot about topics that never interested me, and I know now that even one voice could make a difference.

There’s a very meaningful sentence I learned in my life it’s which is you always have to listen to both side of a story.Before the presentation of living in the shadow of law 21.I agreed with bill 21 because I thought it is better for us to deal with people without knowing their religions and it was better to resolve decisions away from racial discrimination in order to fight sectarianism.Nadia and Laity spoke about a lot of problems and obstacles that faced them because of racist people, and how they were dealing with difficulties only because of their religion, nationality or color.after hearing Nadia’s story, how bill 21 affected her life,work,and future, to develop in a career she chose and loved made me change my mind about agreeing to this law.In my opinion, there are many people who don’t reveal their beliefs or religion to public but at the same time they are racist to people from other religions.In conclusion we cannot fight racism with a law that affects specific people more than others and is preventing them from performing their religions duties and beliefs.