Jackson Katz & Jeremy Earp

 

Jackson Katz has been one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists in the 1980's and 1990's. He is widely recognized for his groundbreaking work in the field of gender violence prevention education with men and boys, particularly in the sports culture and the military. He has lectured on hundreds of college and high school campuses and has conducted hundreds of professional trainings, seminars, and workshops in the U.S., Canada, and Japan.

 

Katz is the founder and director of MVP Strategies, an organization that provides gender violence prevention training and materials to U.S. colleges, high schools, law enforcement and military services, agencies, community organizations, and small and large corporations.

 

Katz is a former all-star football player who became the first man at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to earn a minor in women's studies. He holds a Master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where his research concentration was the social construction of violent masculinities through sports and media.

 

In 1993 he co-created the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Program at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. The multi-racial, mixed gender MVP Program is the first large-scale attempt to enlist high school, collegiate, and professional athletes in the fight against all forms of men's violence against women. MVP has worked with more than 20,000 high school students, as well as 2500 student-athletes at 35 colleges nationally. Katz and other MVP staff  have trained coaches, players, and front office personnel of the New England Patriots Football Club. Katz is the primary author of the program's innovative teaching materials.   Since 1996 he has been directing the first worldwide gender violence prevention program in the history of the United States Marine Corps.   Since 1990, Katz has lectured at more than 450 colleges, prep schools, high schools, middle schools, professional conferences and military installations in 41 states. He has spoken and done trainings at numerous public schools and community organizations across the country.

 

From 1988 to 1998, Katz was the chief organizer for Real Men, the Boston-based anti-sexist men's organization. Real Men leafleted at Fenway Park and Andrew Dice Clay concerts, provided speakers, sponsored debates and conferences, held fundraisers for battered women's shelters, and produced and distributed literature.   Katz has served on the boards of Boston-area battered women's shelters and is currently a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence.   He has published several academic articles on topics including educating college student-athletes in gender violence prevention, violent white masculinity in advertising, men's leadership in gender violence prevention education K-12, juvenile detention, masculinities in media and the male sports culture.

 

Jackson Katz is widely quoted in the national print media. He has appeared on numerous national and local radio programs in the U.S. and Canada, as well as television programs such as Good Morning America, Phil Donahue, Montel Williams, ABC News, 20/20, and the CBS Evening News.

 

 Jeremy Earp teaches English at Parsons School of Design at New School University in New York City. He previously taught English at Northeastern University, and literature and intellectual history at the Art Institute of Boston. He also taught and served as coordinator of Adult Basic Education for the Adult Learning Program in Jamaica Plain, Mass. In addition to teaching, he has helped develop writing, critical thinking and media literacy curricula for universities and urban adult literacy programs. Prior to teaching, he worked for a number of years as a reporter for a daily newspaper outside of Boston.

 

 

Overview

The central premise of Tough Guise is that violence in America is overwhelmingly a gendered phenomenon, and that any attempt to understand violence therefore requires that we understand its relationship to masculinity and manhood. Playing off the image of Toto pulling back the curtain, the film announces its most basic assumptions:

 

*          that masculinity is made, not given (as opposed to maleness, which is biological);

*          that media is the primary narrative, pedagogical force of our time;

*          that media images of manhood – across distinctions of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic

           class -- therefore play a pivotal role in making, shaping and recycling specific attitudes

            about manhood;

*          that a sustained look at media images of manhood and violence reveals a widespread and

           disturbing equation of masculinity with pathological control and violence;

*          and, finally, that looking critically at constructed ideals of manhood by definition diminishes

            the otherwise silent power these very images might wield in shaping our perceptions of
            ourselves, our institutions and each other.

 

The last point is crucial, in that it underscores what we see as the ultimately hopeful message of this film: that change is possible, and violence can be prevented. In keeping with critical media studies, the film takes media images not simply as reflections of who we are, but as in some sense actively involved in telling us who we are. Reading media imagery and discourse critically can therefore change the way we perceive the world, ourselves and each other—while offering insight into how we might change the way media and other cultural/political institutions do business.

 

A key point is that the persistent media fantasy of the "real man" is often just that—more fantasy than real. And as such, it needs maintaining. The "real man" caricature so often associated in media imagery and discourse with control, self-destruction and violence is of course neither fixed nor natural, and therefore can only maintain the illusion that it is so by remaining invisible and silencing alternatives.

 

The personal consequences of this silencing—of ourselves and of others—are demonstrated in the film by the Oakland Men’s Project’s "box exercise." The film’s later examination of such persistent phenomena as men’s violence against women, gay-bashing, and reckless, self-destructive behavior extends the argument by suggesting that we are in the midst of a crisis in masculinity, a crisis that has produced devastating consequences. Just as, institutionally, media and other cultural systems often play up violent masculine ideals at the expense of other, healthier possibilities, on an individual level we see all around us the boy who swallows his emotions for fear of ridicule, for fear of being labeled "feminine" or weak—in essence, not a normal, natural male.

 

Violent masculinity is no more "natural" than media imagery. Both rely on controlled performances. The conclusion of this film amounts to this: By recognizing, and naming, masculine identity as a process, an uneasy performance built on exclusion and policing, the box can be broken open—along with the traditional assumption that masculinity must be connected with violence. Similarly, by looking critically at how institutions—from the media to political institutions to our schools—often play a role in shaping regressive and violent notions of manhood that maintain an unacceptably violent status quo, we stand to clear the way for individuals, male and female, to live freer lives.

 

Video Sections :Introduction

 

Summary

 Masculinity - traditional masculinity in particular - needs to be looked at critically and in new ways. The idea that manhood or masculinity represents a fixed, inevitable, natural state of being is a myth. What a culture embraces as "masculine" can be better understood as an ideal or a standard - a projection, a pose, or a guise that boys and men often adopt to shield their vulnerability and adapt to the local values and expectations of their immediate and more abstract social environments. This projection or pose can take myriad forms, but one that’s crucial to understand in American culture at the millennium is the "tough guise": the front that so many boys and men put up based on an extreme notion of masculinity that emphasizes toughness and physical strength, and gaining the respect and admiration of others through violence or the implicit threat of it.

 

One of the most important places where boys learn to make sense of their world is the powerful and pervasive media system - which is arguably the great pedagogical force of our time. And one of the dominant features of the great media curriculum is a steady stream of images that define manhood as connected with dominance, violence and control. Boys and men have a huge stake in looking critically at media representations of masculinity and in confronting these problems - even if it means that they have to allow themselves, and others, to pull back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on in their lives.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 Key Points

 

The myth of the "real man" is linked intimately with the phenomenon of the "tough guise," wherein boys and men learn to show the world only those parts of themselves that the dominant culture has defined as manly. You can find out what those qualities are by simply listening to young men themselves.

 

 Even at a remarkably young age, boys are likely to be well-versed in the rules of the macho game. Males absorb early on and from everywhere that not only is there such a thing as a "real" man, but also that there is a high price to pay for not qualifying as one.

 

 For boys, across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines, being a real man often means being tough and strong, and fitting into the narrow box that defines ideal manhood.

 

 It is vital that we understand that the real lives and identities of boys and men often - if not always, in some ways - conflict with the dominant "real man" ideal. Behind the bravado and the tough guy posturing, there is human complexity: for some men and boys, the abuse they suffered as children; others their problems in relationships; still others their fears and vulnerabilities. In other words, behind the guise is the real boy and man, the results of a sensitive, nuanced experience of the world that rarely airs in public.

 

 Boys pick up on this act, learn what’s inside the box and what’s outside, from a culture that feeds - and feeds off of - masculine stereotypes. Beyond individual boys and their unique struggles, there are larger social and historical forces at work that affect the way individuals live their lives.

 

 The media help construct violent masculinity as a cultural norm. Even a cursory survey of media imagery and discourse reveals quite strikingly the repeated and unquestioned assumption that violence is not so much a deviation as it is an accepted part of masculinity.

 

 If we want to understand violence in America, we need to understand the growing connection made in our society - on both an individual and a systemic level - between being a man and being violent. And we need to understand how this has produced disastrous results for American society as a whole.

 

 The fact is that some of the most serious problems in contemporary American society, especially those connected with violence, can be looked at as essentially problems within contemporary American masculinity. If we look at almost any category of violence we see that the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male. (For more information, see Scientific American's June 1999 Special Issue on Men, www.sciam.com/1999/0699mens/0699quicksummary.html).

 

 Boys and men are inflicting an incredible level of pain and suffering, both on themselves and on others. And much of the violence is cyclical: many boys who are abused as children grow up and become perpetrators. But if we want to intervene in this deadly cycle we have to examine how our society encourages male violence in the first place.

 

 Trying to improve the lives of boys and men is anything but a case of "male-bashing." Looking critically at what boys and men are doing - including harming themselves and others - is not in any way "anti-male." In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s simply being honest about what’s going on in boys’ and men’s lives. Women have been at the forefront of trying to get men to start talking about these subjects, but it’s not only girls and women who stand to benefit if men’s lives are transformed; statistically speaking, the major victims of male violence are other males.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Questions for Discussion

 

1.  What are some benefits to boys and men of putting on the tough guise? When is it an effective and adaptive response, and when is it self-destructive and dangerous to others?

 

2.  Why do some people consider it "male-bashing" to point out that males commit the vast majority of violence? Discuss the term "male-bashing." It is a violent term that is, nonetheless, often used to describe women and men who are speaking out against violence. Why? What effect does some men's defensiveness have on our willingness to be honest about the disproportionate amount of violence perpetrated by males?

 

3.  Are there biological reasons why males commit the vast majority of violence? If so, why do rates of violence vary widely between different countries? Why is the U.S. by far the most violent society in the industrialized world? And how do we explain, if the primary cause of violence is biological or genetic, why the vast majority of males do not perpetrate violence?

 

4.  Many cultural commentators have noted that media representations of men of color (e.g. news accounts, roles in film, pornography, sports) have disproportionately shown them to be aggressive and violent. What effect do these portrayals have on the gender identity formation of boys and men of color? How do these portrayals influence the way the white majority sees men of color?

---

Hidden: A Gender

 Summary

 

The way we talk about violence shapes the way we understand it. Assuming, rather than naming explicitly, the fact that violence is primarily in the domain of boys and men both hides this basic fact and perpetuates the myth that all men and boys are inherently violent. They are not. Yet the fact is that boys and men are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violence. Calling attention to this fact, as a fact, forces us to look not at the violent nature of boys and men, not at biological determinants, but at the violent "nature" of the ideas, images and values some boys and men associate with being a man. Simply put, it forces us to look at masculinity. So that when we hear discussions of how media is making "kids" violent, we need to pause. Girls absorb media …Why then so much more violence from boys?

 

 

Key Points

 

*            Violence needs to be seen as a gender issue, especially as an issue caught up in how we as a society think about masculinity and manhood.

  

*          In the national conversation about violence, it’s rarely referred to as a gender issue, although one gender, men, perpetrates approximately 90% of the violence.

 

 

*          One of the ways dominance functions is that the dominant group avoids being examined. We focus always on the subordinated group - blacks or Latinos when we talk about race; gays when we talk about sexual orientation; women when we talk about gender. Unconscious or not, this focus helps the dominant group remain invisible and protects the status quo.

 

 

*          This dynamic plays out in a number of ways when it comes to discussions of violence. One is the rampant use of the passive voice when we talk about crimes against women, which shifts our focus off of male perpetrators and onto female victims and survivors. (see Julia Penelope in "Suggested Reading.")

 

 

*            Another example, also embedded in language, can be seen in the sort of linguistic neutering of violence found in newspaper headlines and stories all around the country - which again and again speak of "youth violence," and of "kids killing kids," not boys killing boys and boys killing girls.

 

 

*          Few would argue with the common-sense idea that dealing with a problem requires, first of all, that you name it. If we don’t frame violence as the overwhelmingly male, masculine phenomenon that it is, then subsequent discussions about the causes of violence are destined to ignore one of the key elements.

 

 

*          A key indication that de-gendered discussions of violence serve to universalize or naturalize violence as a male thing: when girls commit violence, that's always the subject. When girls turn violent, the gendered nature of the crime is always part of the discussion. The same needs to be true with male violence. The bottom line is that violence has been gendered masculine.

 

 

*          A key goal in violence prevention is to make masculinity visible. To make explicit the overwhelmingly masculine character of most violence. And to reject the idea that "it goes without saying" that males are more violent as anti-intellectual, biologically deterministic, and implicitly anti-male.

 

 

*          Making masculinity visible is the first step to understanding how it operates in the culture and how definitions of manhood have been linked, often unconsciously, to dominance and control. Making masculinity a key part of the equation is therefore step one in dealing effectively with the problem of violence in our society.

 

Discussion Questions

 

1.   Many people think the very concept of "gender issues" is synonymous with "women's issues." Talk about why this is so. And discuss how this misconception makes it difficult for many men, and women, to understand the gendered nature of men's lives.

 

2.  Why is it important to identify the gender of the perpetrators of violence? How would gendering the discussion help contribute to reducing violence?

 

3.  What is the difference between saying "male violence" and "men's violence?"

 

4.  What is the difference between using the common term "violence against women" rather than the less commonly used "men’s violence against women"? And why is this difference significant?

 

5.  Why did "Thelma and Louise" become so controversial, when movies featuring men's violence against women are released regularly with little protest?

 

6.  Is it "nit-picking" or needlessly "politically correct" to suggest that we should not use male-inflected language to suggest universal ideas and experiences? Are we overreacting or reading into things too much, for example, when we question descriptions such as "man has always searched for answers," or "man’s religions have unifying themes" as inherently exclusionary and sexist? How might the way we approach and think about such formulations be different if we said "men and women" instead?

 

7.  What is meant by the term "politically correct"?

 

8.  When is it time to stop questioning something? To stop thinking critically about an issue or an idea (such as the importance of how language is used)? And who decides?

---

 

Uping The Anti

 Summary

 

What comes to be accepted as "masculine" in a society is largely a cultural construction, not simply an expression of a shared male nature. Key here is distinguishing biology from learning, seeing masculinity - or, more accurately "masculinities" - not in biological terms, but as a learned set of standards or styles embedded deeply in the values and ideology of culture. As culture evolves, so does our notion of what constitutes "manliness." What is considered supremely "masculine" in one context - say, George Washington in a wig and knee breeches or Mel Gibson in a kilt - might be the very definition of "unmanly" in another.

 

The fact that masculinity is not fixed, that male identity is fluid and subject to change, is of course cause for hope that violent ideals of masculinity are not inevitable; if "masculinity" by nature is forever shifting, and if we’re plagued in our own cultural moment with media images that continually connect masculinity with control and violence, then the possibility exists for better images and healthier visions of what it means to be a man. But even a cursory look at some of the more dominant images consumed by young men in particular suggests that the way media have portrayed manliness seems to have devolved as much as it has evolved.

 

The marked increase over time in the size of representations of men's bodies, and the concomitant increase in gun size and killing power, provides a kind of cultural rorschak test. They are indications of how the stakes have been raised, how the real man fantasy peddled to and consumed by so many boys has grown increasingly physical, violent and mean. Significantly, even as we observe this phenomenon of increased male body size, particularly in the kinds of representations that predominate in action films, professional wrestling and video games, we can trace simultaneously the shrinking of the ideal body size of women. Such increasingly impossible and potentially destructive images need to be taken seriously, especially in the context of heightening concerns not only about male violence - but about steroid abuse by boys and men, and anorexia among girls and women.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Key Points

*          One way to understand the meaning and value of something in American society is to look at how it is represented in the media - and to understand that the media both reflect and produce these meanings and values.

 

 

*          Images of men and masculinity have changed dramatically and in revealing ways over the past 50 years, particularly in terms of the size of men’s bodies. And these changes tell us a story about what’s going on in the culture.

 

*          The representation of the ideal masculine body has grown considerably over time. The ideal has always been a fantasy, but now the fantasy is bigger. The increasing size of Superman, Batman, pro wrestlers, GI Joe and the characters of Star Wars is especially interesting and revealing given that representations of the ideal, fantasy female body have been shrinking in inverse proportion. (For more discussion of how women's bodies are represented in media, see Jean Kilbourne's films Slim Hopes & Killing Us Softly III.)

 

 

*          It is telling that in an era when women have been challenging male power in business, the professions, education, and other areas of economic and social life, the images of women’s bodies that have flooded the culture depict women as less threatening. They’re literally taking up less symbolic space. At the same time, images of men have gotten bigger, stronger, more muscular and more violent. It stands to reason that one of the ways that men have responded to women’s challenges is by overcompensating and placing greater value on size, strength, and muscularity.

 

 

*          The same pattern can be seen in the way gun imagery has changed over the last 50 years; from Humphrey Bogart and Sean Connery, to Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzeneggar, the guns - along with the masculine codes they represent - have become more and more imposing, violent and menacing.

 

 

*          Bottom line: There is nothing natural about images. They’re made, and how they’re made says something about those in the culture that make them and consume them. And the fact is that in our culture men have been the primary authors of our popular culture. When we look at changes in pop-culture’s images, we’re also looking at the changing psyches of their creators and consumers.

 

 

*          Still, the images of violent masculinity that pervade media represent more than the public screening of the private and pathological fantasies of the individual males who dream them up. They are also windows into massive historical, structural shifts.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Discussion Questions

 

1.   What are some of the potential effects on boys and men of trying to live up to our culture's ideal of physical size and strength? Emotional effects? Health effects? What is the relationship between cultural ideals of male strength and steroid abuse?

 

2.  Why are guns sometimes referred to as "great equalizers?" How do individual and cultural notions of manhood contribute to boys' and men's gun ownership and usage?

 

3.  What are some areas of life (aside from muscles) where size matters? Why?

 

4.  What, or whose, interests are served - or have been served - by the increasing size and heightening violence associated with the male body? What, or whose, interests have not been served?

 

5.  Do you feel that the media simply reflect changes in society, or do they in some way inspire change? If the former, why was the stereotypical size of the "masculine" male so much smaller in the past? If the latter, explain how and why you feel individuals are susceptible to media influence?

 

6.  What do you make of the increasing presence of overtly sexualized male bodies in advertising, posed in provocative, at times submissive, ways? Could this increased visibility of the male body as sexualized object - rather than as a powerful agent - be a response to shifting attitudes in the culture about masculinity?

 

 

---

 

Backlash

 Summary

 

We gain insight into masculinity and its contemporary relationship to violence when we consider history. What comes to be considered "masculine" is always in process, always to some extent connected to time, place and history - individual and local as much as institutional. The current crisis in masculinity might therefore be constructively understood as a response, at least in part, to massive cultural changes.

 

The women’s movement, the civil rights movement, and gay and lesbian rights movements presented a direct threat to traditional notions of manhood, rendering dominant straight, white masculinity visible and therefore vulnerable. The immense popularity of masculine icons such as John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and Sylvester Stallone might be seen, then, as an expression of longing for backlash versions of violent, traditional, dominant versions of masculinity that could, in fantasy at least, return America - especially dislocated American males - to less confusing, less threatening times, times untouched by the progressive political and social gains of the 60s and 70s.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Key Points

 

*          The changes we’ve seen in images of masculinity are in part a response to a perceived threat to traditional conceptions of the dominant idea of masculinity - that is of white, middle-class heterosexual masculinity.

 

 

*          The social movements that arose in the 1960s presented a threat to established power that still reverberates. The Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Liberation Movement, the gay and lesbian movements, and the anti-war and student movement that opposed U.S. intervention in Vietnam disrupted entrenched power interests and the traditions on which they were based. In particular, these movements threatened the dominant white heterosexual masculinity that had held largely unquestioned social, political, economic and cultural power in the United States.

 

 

*          Some men have not reacted well to these changes and there has been a backlash. Again, our media heroes tell a story. Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and the current crop of so-called men’s television shows all rose to prominence and widespread popularity by tapping into and trading in anger towards strong, independent women. All of these acts found an audience by explicitly trashing either feminism, or any notion of a woman as something more than a tool for men’s pleasure.

 

 

*            Similarly, we can see examples all around us of a backlash against the hard-fought gains of gays and lesbians. As with the women’s movement, while many heterosexual people, men and women, have responded very positively to these changes, many have not. The rise in anti-gay violence is one of the clearest indications that a lot of young men are very insecure and anxious about their sexual and gender identities as the culture increasingly opens up.

 

 

*          A number of scholars have argued that on top of all the internal social movements that were transforming American life in the 1960s, there was also an external aspect represented by the loss of the Vietnam War. And one way that some people responded to that was to say that we lost in Vietnam because we had lost our masculine pride - had Sly Stallone held sway in the 60s and 70s, and with him all the old-school masculinity he embodied in Rambo and Rocky, then maybe we’d still be the great (read: macho) country we were before Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement came along and emasculated America.

 

 

*          The ultimate political manifestation of this backlash against the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s came in the election to the presidency in 1980 of the arch conservative Ronald Reagan. After a campaign in which Reagan and his handlers expertly employed masculine iconography against every progressive gain of the 60s and 70s, his election marked the culmination of the belief that the reason America had lost its way was that it had become too weak, too soft. His cowboy image and his right-wing beliefs represented a vision of America rooted deep in the past, when blacks were not demanding equality, when women accepted their second-class status, when gays were still in the closet. Basically, a past when men were still men and knew what that meant.

 

 

*          To really understand what Ronald Reagan represented culturally and politically, we have to understand the career of another very prominent and powerful movie actor, John Wayne, an incredibly important force in the shaping of post-war American masculinity. After the emasculating performance of Jimmy Carter, Reagan - reverberating in the wake of Wayne - was the man for the job.

 

*          It’s key to remember, of course, that when we talk about "John Wayne," we're talking about an actor playing the role of John Wayne. We’re talking about a performance, one that is linked to the sort of façade-keeping and simulation at the heart of every "real man" performance.

 

 

*          The relationship between John Wayne and Ronald Reagan shows us two important things. First, that the ideal of manhood that was being offered as an alternative to the changes of the 1960s and 70s came from the past, when racism, sexism and homophobia were the norm. Second, that the image that people like Ronald Reagan were trying to reproduce was already an act that attempted to repress a more real, complex masculinity.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Discussion Questions

 

1.   Numerous writers and theorists have argued that cultural changes catalyzed by the various multicultural women's movements over the past generation have created historically unprecedented opportunities for women. How have some of these changes affected men's lives, both positively and negatively? Is sexual equality a zero sum game, where one sex can gain only at the expense of the other?

 

2.   Seventy-five percent of women who are murdered by their husbands, boyfriends, or exes are killed after they leave or seek to leave the relationship. What is the connection between this phenomenon on the individual level and the sociological insight that groups tend not to concede power without a struggle of some sort?

 

3.  The vast majority of gay-bashing incidents are perpetrated by young men. Discuss the reasons for gay-bashing, focusing on the gender and sexual identities of the perpetrators.

 

4.  Much of the contemporary discussion about gender and politics focuses on women. But men, too, are influenced dramatically by gender ideology. Discuss some of the ways that men's sense of themselves as men affects the way they vote, align themselves politically, or think about social and political issues. How do differences of race and socioeconomic class complicate this?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

---

 

The Tough Guise

 Summary

 

The essence of masculinity is performance. And the essence of the performance has grown increasingly violent. Over the last decade, largely as a result of the popularity of rap and hip-hop music, an urban black street style has made its way into the cultural mainstream, what Richard Majors has called "Cool Pose." Glamorized in places like MTV, and consumed out of context by white suburban boys who have come to emulate this distorted glamorization of the hyper violent black male body and tough-guy style, this phenomenon has joined disparate groups like white middle class boys and poor African-American city kids across racial and class lines in a common embrace of violent masculinity.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Key Points

 

*            Theorists and researchers in profeminist sociology and men's studies in recent years have developed the concept of masculinities, as opposed to masculinity, to more adequately describe the complexities of male social position, identity, and experience. All males might belong to the same sex-class, but their experiences as men differ substantially according to their racial or socioeconomic background, or their sexual orientation.

 

*          The idea that men need to adopt a hyper-masculine posture in order to gain credibility and respect is common in many groups of men of color, who for so long and in such great numbers have been stripped of such credibility - stripped of their manhood, essentially - by the dominant white culture.

 

*          Again, this phenomenon of posing shows us that a defining element of masculinity is the performance of it. But rap and hip-hop music and style are not by any means the only forces that offer this story. The culture in general tells boys that you become real men through power and control, that respect is linked to physical strength and the threat of violence and the ability, frankly, to scare people.

 

 

*          We have to ask ourselves: what is the effect on society and its institutions when boys are trained to become men according to such claustrophobic, outmoded standards?

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.   What does it mean to be "masculine"? What does it mean to be "feminine"?

 

2.  Where do ideas about masculinity and femininity come from?

 

3.  In what cases, or environments, do you feel a "hyper-masculine" pose - one based on control, power and the threat of violence - might be necessary? Are there such situations?

 

4.  What might be some of the consequences of adopting such a pose? Consequences for the one posturing and those around him?

 

5.  How do media influence - or determine - what such poses consist of? Examples?

 

6.  What are the implications when a style of tough-guy masculinity formed in one environment gets taken up in another?

 

7.  How does the media’s portrayal of African-American men distort the actual experience of African-American males?

 

8.  What sort of power can the limited, sometimes racist, portrayal of men of color exercise over white boys? And why do you feel white boys from the suburbs seem to be so taken in by these images?

 

9.  How much of what it means to be male - to seem male - do you feel is learned? How much do you feel is natural? And where are the primary places boys learn how to be in the world?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The School Shootings

 

Summary

Taking a hard look at masculinity is absolutely crucial to understanding the again overwhelmingly male phenomenon of school shootings - which among other things have identified bullying as a serious and largely overlooked problem in our middle schools and high schools. While it’s dangerous and misguided to explain away what happened at Columbine as the logical outcome of anything, it would be equally irresponsible to ignore the distinctly male character of this, and the other, incidents.

 

Another important feature of these school shootings, especially the way they’ve been covered and talked about, is the running subtext that what’s most shocking is that these incidents have involved so-called "normal kids," the unspoken racist implication being that this is what (black) kids in cities do. If we’re to answer the "why" question, it is imperative that we take our focus off of the pathological male as the perpetrator of violence and put it on the "normal," average-looking guys. We also need to confront the fact that most violence is perpetrated by boys and men and figure out how, given this unavoidable fact, we might change our definitions of manhood to begin dealing seriously with the heart of the problem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Key Points

 

*          According to press reports, the Columbine perpetrators were outsiders who didn’t fit in, and who saw themselves as being victimized and bullied by an abusive jock culture that celebrated toughness and muscularity. In guns these kids found the great equalizer, an immediate ability to actualize their revenge fantasy in a violent, physical way, and finally gain a grotesque form of respect.

 

*         Most of the media coverage has missed the fact that the school shootings are not about "violence," generally speaking, but about violent masculinity. As usual, the focus has been on youth violence, " or "kids killing kids," or as a CBS special on Columbine put it, "Young Guns." But this isn't kids killing kids. Overwhelmingly, again, it's boys killing boys and boys killing girls. And we need to name it as such.

 

Attributing violence to psychotic and pathological male figures - represented in media by such figures as Freddy Kruger, Jason, and Hannibal Lecter - allows us to avoid confronting the fact that the vast majority of violence is perpetrated by average, normal-looking boys and men. Attributing violence to supernatural "evil" also allows us to deflect attention away from the social, economic, and political institutions that for many years have been producing violent males at pandemic rates.

 

*          Lethal violence involving young people has long been a fact of life in communities of color. But the media tends to report it matter-of-factly. But when white kids (boys) kill in tree-lined suburbs, the issue becomes front-page news and prompts a national debate about "youth violence."

 

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.   Why are the vast majority of school shootings perpetrated by boys?

 

2.   Why do you think there have been few, if any, such incidents involving girls who took up arms against their classmates?

 

3.  If a girl, or group of girls, were the perpetrators in a school shooting, do you feel media coverage would emphasize the fact that they were girls?

 

4.  Why do the media tend not to focus on the gender issue when boys, or men, are the perpetrators?

 

5.  What were the stated motives of the shooters in the majority of U.S. school shootings in 1998-1999? What are some of the similarities? Differences?

 

6.  The teenaged perpetrator of the Pearl, Mississippi shooting, Luke Woodham, stated that "I killed because people like me are mistreated every day…Murder is not weak and slow-witted. Murder is gutsy and daring." Discuss this statement and what it might reveal about his state of mind. Also, what does it mean that the majority of school shooting perpetrators claimed to have been bullied in school?

 

7.  What sort of pressures do boys, in particular, face during their middle and high school experience? How do these differ from the pressures girls face? How are they similar? Can these pressures lead to violence? Why does it seem to happen in some cases, and not in others?

 

8.  If you were in charge, what would you do to reduce male violence in schools?

 

9.  What are some other social issues involving youth that were largely ignored when confined to communities of color, but which became major national issues when young white people were involved?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Constructing Violent Masculinity

 Summary

 Perhaps the most obvious question to ask - yet one that’s rarely posed - is: "Why is approximately 90% of violence committed by boys and men?" One of the keys to arriving at some kind of answer is to reject oversimplifying explanations that posit one-to-one, cause-and-effect relationships between things like video games or movies and specific, imitative violent acts. The fact is that the root of the problem lies not just in these few places, but everywhere, deeply embedded in what passes for normal culture - part of the normal training, conditioning and socializing of boys and men.

 

A broader view of media violence suggests that significantly reducing violence involves much more than simply stopping young boys from playing violent video games, or watching violent movies. The reality is that messages that link being a man with being violent, controlling and intimidating are everywhere in the culture - from gun magazines, sports and wrestling, to romantic comedies and talk radio - as well as in the more obvious places like video games and television. If we want to deal seriously with reducing violence, we have to turn away from thinking about violence as "kids imitating violence," and focus instead on the incredible diversity of ways that we as a society are actively constructing violent masculinity as a cultural norm; not as something unusual or unexpected, but as one of the ways that boys become men.

 

Key Points

 

What’s needed is a critical understanding of how masculinity is represented, valued and modeled across the cultural spectrum. This means taking seriously and looking critically at:

 

*          the incredibly pervasive and influential sports culture - particularly violent sports like football and pro wrestling;

*            commercial images that glamorize steroid-induced physical size and strength;

*          how guns are intimately associated - in media, and in the very history and mythology of America - with manhood, masculine credibility, and compensatory power;

*          the increasingly interactive nature of violent video games, which every day offer boys newer and more sophisticated ways to simulate and experience violence in ever more personal and realistic ways.

 

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.    Do media images "cause" violence? When is the cause direct, as inimitative acts of violence? How might the influence of media be felt in more subtle ways?

 

2.  If males' propensity for violence is biologically preordained, what accounts for the wide discrepancies in rates of violence between different societies? Between different regions in the same societies? Between different historical periods in the same societies?

 

3.   If the glamorization of violence by media and other parts of our culture sometimes inspires actual violence, why is it that girls and women who are surrounded by the same media environment are so much less likely than boys and men to commit violence?

 

4.   Given that media glamorize violence (something those in the industry admit as a problem themselves), and assuming that this glamorization can lead males, in particular, to commit violent acts, why is it that so many more males exposed to the same imagery do not commit acts of violence? Does this suggest there’s something more than biology going on here?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

---

 

 

Sexualized Violence

 

Summary

 The mainstream media culture plays a critical role in constructing violent masculinity as a cultural norm by offering up a steady stream of images of violent men (and boys). In addition to man-on-man murder and assault, media also contribute to our society's pandemic of rape, sexiual assault, child sexual abuse, battering, and teen dating violence by presenting men's violence against women and girls in a sexualized fashion. Sexualizing men's violence against women has the effect of blinding many people to the seriousness of the violence. The focus is on the supposed "sexiness" of the portrayal, not on the pain and trauma associated with sexual violence. Social scientists have developed a body of research over the past couple of decades which demonstrates that repeated exposure to sexualized violence in pornography and in Hollywood film and music video can have the effect of desensitizing viewers - especially males - to the humanity of female victims and potential victims. This desensitization begins early in life, and today, due to the proliferation of pornographic images on the Internet, cable television, and increasingly in "mainstream" TV and film culture, millions of young boys and men are being exposed to an unprecedented level of sexualized brutality against women.

 

It is important to emphasize that the widespread incidence of men's violence against women - both sexualized and other forms of non-sexual abuse - in our society is linked to cultural constructs of violent masculinity and sexism and is not simply due to the accumulation of a high number of individual men acting out violently. Violent behavior is overwhelmingly learned behavior, and in the late 20th and early 21st century, the media is the most powerful teacher and transmitter of cultural values. Hence any effort to reduce our society's shameful level of men's violence against women has to take into account media as both a source of the problem and the site of potential solutions.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Key Points

 

*          Men's and boys' violence against women and girls is not genetically programmed, but rather is learned behavior. In the contemporary era, media is a key site for that learning.

 

 

*          The sexualization of violence against women - making it "sexy" - helps blind us to the real pain and suffering violence causes.

 

 

*          An example of the power of media to obscure the seriousness of gender violence can be seen in the humorous film There's Something About Mary, where a major portion of the film - and the humor -- is devoted to the efforts of four different men to track, stalk, and spy on a sexualized female object of their desire. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 1 in 12 women will be stalked in their lifetime.

 

 

*          Men who batter women are typically seeking to exert or maintain power and control in the relationship. The need for power and control in a relationship is a learned need. Men learn it in their families of origin, but also in the media culture, where images of masculinity defined as always in control and on top are ubiquitous.

 

 

*          Teen dating violence is an increasingly common problem, and college professionals in recent years have been dealing with an increased incidence of abuse in intimate relationships.

 

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.   What is the relationship between a man's gender ideology (his definition of what it means to be a man) and his likelihood of using violence? Do images of men as powerful because they're in control - of women as well as other men - contribute to men's violence against women? Discuss examples from media where boys/men are shown as being in control of or abusive toward girls/women.

 

2.  Many feminists have argued that sexualizing violence makes the violence seem less threatening, and hence more acceptable. Cite and discuss an example from a Hollywood film (e.g. There's Something About Mary, or Psycho) where a sexualized depiction of men's violence against women helps to obscure the violent aspect.

 

3.  Much of the political controversy surrounding pornography focuses on the degrading depiction of women as two-dimensional sexual objects for men's pleasure. Yet men finance, produce, and consume the vast majority of pornography. What does pornography teach us about men?

 

 

---

 

 Invulnerability

 Summary

 

There is more to what our culture holds up as "masculine" than just violence. Boys are also being taught, by the popular culture, that a real man is not only strong physically, but emotionally as well, in the highly restrictive sense that real men don’t need other people, that they can make it on their own. This ideal has been represented in popular culture by characters like John Wayne, in the modern era by the likes of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo, and with particular historical force by the Marlboro Man.

 

The rugged individualist rapture induced by the image of the Marlboro Man has long been intimately tied up with traditional notions of American manhood - with the dangerous idea that masculinity is synonymous with invulnerability and indifference to others. This destructive masculine ethos has inspired and normalized cruel institutional and political behavior, while also getting a lot of young men killed. In reality, the most hard-line version of the rugged individualist ideal plays out in the lives of men in far less glamorous ways. It’s seen in the staggering numbers of boys and men who turn to drugs and alcohol in misguided attempts to recover feeling. And in the reckless behavior that lies at the heart of such overwhelmingly male phenomena as reckless, fast driving, binge drinking, and the kind of sexual assault, date rape and violence against women that so often explodes out of the volatile mix of males and alcohol.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Key Points

 

*          The ubiquitous image of the Marlboro Man, and the style and ideology it embodies, have wielded immense power in shaping definitions of the "real man" as a quiet, stoic, rugged individual, who doesn’t do much talking or relating to other people.

 

 

*          As with the hugely popular Hollywood western genre (more than 4,000 films in the sound era), this rugged individualist ideal has enormous emotional and psychological costs if taken seriously as a model or standard.

 

 

*          One of the most serious costs of this tough guy, hard guy posing is that a lot of men and boys feel unable to seek help, look inward, or share themselves emotionally with others.

 

 

*          The unhealthy and risk-taking behaviors of young males, the damage they are doing to themselves, others, and society, requires that we take seriously those cultural environments that cultivate and glamorize such behavior. Instead of connecting masculinity with invulnerability, we have to show that vulnerability, compassion and caring are also part of what it means to be a real man.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.   The rugged individualist ideal - as represented by the Marlboro Man - plays a powerful ideological and political role in our society. How does the ubiquitous message that a "real man" makes it on his own influence contemporary political debates about such issues as homelessness, welfare, labor unions, crime, etc.?

 

2.  Why is there such a disparity between men and women in terms of alcohol abuse rates? Drinking and driving accidents? What are some of the ways that men's use or abuse of alcohol or other substances are linked to their gendered experience as men?

 

3.  What are some of the emotional and psychological reasons why boys and men are so much more likely than girls and women to act out violently?

 

4.  What are some of the emotional and psychological reasons why boys and men are so much less likely to seek help with emotional problems? What are the consequences of this reluctance?

 

5.  What is the connection between the traditional ideal of the "real man" and invulnerability?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

---

 

Vulnerability

 

Summary

 More diversified images of masculinity require more honest portrayals of male vulnerability, a glamorization of authentic male experience and feeling that breaks the association with weakness of male sensitivity and compassion for others. Such models already exist, and need to be held up as models, as inspiring and courageous examples of real "real men."

 

 Key Points

 

*          Men like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Christopher Reeve have modeled styles of manhood based on compassion, sensitivity, openness and respect for others.

 

 

*          Films like The Full Monty, Boyz n' the Hood, Saving Private Ryan and Good Will Hunting have achieved remarkable popularity - with men and women - by presenting more authentic versions of the male experience, achieving emotional, thematic and aesthetic power by offering a sustained gaze behind the curtain of traditional masculinity to reveal the often tragic consequences of holding too fast to destructive masculine myths.

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.   What would it mean to have more diversified images of masculinity? What sorts of images work against the stereotypical image of the "real man"? What would their characteristics be?

 

2.  What are some examples of alternative masculinity prominent now in American pop culture? How are these images different from those of traditional masculinity?

 

3.  Can you think of examples from media - or other sources, such as your own experience - in which alternatives to traditional masculinity come into conflict with traditional masculinity? (Homophobia, gay-bashing and bullying are all key issues here.)

 

4.  What are some examples, other than those in the film, of boys or men who show vulnerability, or who are not stereotypically "masculine," and are respected for it?

 

5.  Do you feel the culture is opening up, that it has started to embrace more willingly males that go against the traditional masculine type? If so, why do you think this is happening? If not, why not?

 

6.  Are younger generations of Americans different today from older generations in their view of masculinity and femininity? If so, how and why has this happened? What’s different now? If not, how and why have things essentially stayed the same?

 

 

---

Better Men

 Summary

 The heartening news is that over the past few decades our culture has opened up in innumerable ways and become more diverse in terms of gender, sexuality, and race. But all around us we see persistent signals that we need to remain vigilant, that basic justice for too many people remains an elusive reality. Any time the culture opens up there is always the risk that it will prompt a closing and a retrenchment of certain threatened interests.

 

In the final analysis, what’s required is a full-scale transformation in how we imagine, define and model masculinity - a personal and institutional re-visioning of manhood that specifically and forcefully affirms courage as something far more noble than simply possessing physical prowess and power. This means nothing less than holding to a vision of masculinity that is entirely at odds with senseless violence, bullying and posturing, and entirely in keeping with grace, compassion and the guts to stay loyal to what’s right.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Key Points

 

*          The entrenched interests most threatened by seismic shifts in contemporary culture are both political and personal. The radical right-wing militia movement makes clear the continued political desire of some men for a reactionary return to times friendlier to self-styled "real men," especially when such movements are seen through the lens of gender for what they are: nothing less than an extreme wing of the men’s rights movement. On a more personal level, persistently high rates of men’s violence against women and gay-bashing - even as other crimes decrease dramatically - indicate that there are a lot of men unwilling to break with traditional male authority over women, and are more than willing to use violence to uphold it.

 

*            Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela represent a different kind of man. All three of these men represented peoples who suffered incredible violence and bloodshed at the hands of brutal oppressors; but instead of responding with violence, they responded, at crucial moments, with peace and reconciliation. And it took a lot more guts to do that than the far easier path of violence.

 

*          Boys and men need to know that courage does not simply mean being one of the guys, when being one of the guys means going along with harassing girls or bullying other boys. It means having the guts to support girls and women, and work with them in their striving for justice and equal treatment. It means speaking out against teen dating violence, sexual harassment, and the myriad ways that some boys and men abuse and mistreat girls and women.

 

*          For heterosexual people, male and female, it means having the courage to join gay-straight alliances and in other ways support the aspirations of gay, lesbian and transgendered people to be treated with dignity and respect - and to live free from the threat of violence.

 

*          None of this will be achieved with just individual boys and men being more reflective about their choices. It’s going to have to happen both on a personal and an institutional level. One of the most important things we have to work for is a change in the institutions that create, recycle and feed off of a residually destructive and narrow range of gender stereotypes.

 

*          The effort required is collective. While girls and women are not in any way responsible for men’s violence, they do have an important role to play as well, because the tough guise is attractive to men in part because they see many girls and women validating it. Girls and women have to show that they’re looking for more in men than bad boy posturing, and in particular that they value men who reject the tough guise.

 

*          It’s clear that a lot of boys and men today are searching for new, healthier, self-respecting ways of being men in a rapidly changing world. We need to hear their stories, too, and learn from them. In different ways all of us need to struggle for real cultural and structural changes in America if we want our sons, and their sons, to have a chance of being better men.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Questions for Discussion & Further Study

 

1.  How can some types of violence be seen as a response to contemporary culture’s increasingly open views of gender, race and sexuality? What kinds of violence, specifically, seem to represent such a response?

 

2.  What is the difference between *individual* boys and men thinking critically about their attitudes and behaviors, and *institutional* change that allows more diversity and flexibility in men's lives, relationships, and work and family responsibilities? Cite examples of each.

 

3.  In what ways do some girls and women contribute to boys' and men's adoption of the tough guise? Why do some girls/women find "bad boy" posturing attractive?

 

4.  What role can girls and women play in preventing the glorification of violent masculinity, especially to make a difference when it comes to male violence against women?

 

5.  How can changing our ideas about masculinity help preserve hard-won victories over time for social justice - victories won by women, people of color, gays and lesbians in particular?

 

6.  What is courage? What is the difference between physical courage and moral courage? Cite examples of each.

 

7.  How would this film define a "better man"?

------------------------------------------------------------------------