Nice article on talking to boys about dating violence

NAIR?

I found this beauty at America's gem of a supermarket: Wal-Mart. The funniest part is since it removes Mens hair specifically, it's called a "speed cream", leaving some slow shavers in the dust. Sorry.

Happy Holidays!

Cosmomasculine

This struck me as ridiculous, but not surprising. I am not an avid-Cosmo-reader by any means, but my opinion stems from the minutes I spend at Publix flipping straight to the "Confessions" article (so addicting!).

But *AHEM*

I feel one of it's strengths is the responsibility they've put on American women to maintain these unrealistic roles or else they are inadequate beings! (Along with contributing to women's unhealthy body image, class issues, and gender roles, blah blah but I digress).

In the sake of Masculinity, the above article is about Cosmo's "Hottest Commercial Guys", along with a tiny analyses of each stereotype. I know it's parody, but it's interesting to see what a "Cosmogirl" finds attractive in their "man".

(And was it me or did it seem strange that "The Listerine Guy" made it in.)

Lady Gaga in Bitch Magazine

So I came across this article not too long ago which focuses on Lady Gaga and her persona seen in a feminist point of view. It's pretty interesting and maybe you could form your own opinion as well:

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/pushback-at-the-intersections-lady-gaga-and-feminism

"Manly" Animes

Earlier this semester I went to a video gaming and Japanese animation and pop-culture convention named EXPcon in St. Augustine. I noticed a similar panel that was featured in this convention that was in the convention, Anime Festival Orlando, that I went to back in August. This panel discussed "manly" animes.

While I'm not oblivious to the horrible gender norms that are perpetuated through Japanese media and pop-culture, I was not aware of two of the animes that were featured in these two different but similar panels. These animes are named "Fist of the North Star" and "Golgo 13". Both of these animes came out during the mid-1980s and feature high amounts of violence and subjectification of women. "Fist of the North Star" is about a warrior living in a post-apocalyptic world who has the ability to kill his foes from the inside-out by pressing on certain pressure points on the body. "Golgo 13" is about a womanizing professional assassin.

Both of these animes are widely popular amongst men in the anime community. I have never seen any of these animes, nor do I have any wish to do so. Here are two videos that I viewed at the conventions I went to this year:

"Fist of the North Star"

"Golgo 13"

Response to the Ugly Truth film review

I had read this blog actually before I even saw the movie. The movie I actually did love and thought it was hilarious. But I thought Wendy had done a great job at picking up on the way the movie depicts how its supposedly ok for men to have responses to relationships the way he does in the movie. And how funny that he ends up getting the girl at the end of the movie as well! One part of the movie that stood out a little more in mind after reading the review was the dinner with all the big-wig executives. Either though the woman in the movie is not only a main-character and in charge of the whole show they do, she is continually spoken over and ignored for what she has to say and they are much more interested in what the man has to say, even though a good majority of it is very sexist. Other things about the movie that I think made it a good choice to review was how she had to change not only her image to impress a man, but her personality also. It's upsetting to think that we as women can't have someone like us for who we are, rather than what we could possibly be to be better. And I know that I have definitely seen other girls I know do the same thing in real life. They act like they are interested in something that they really aren't interested in at all, and have to appear more "sexual" in order to gain the attention of someone. It's really disappointing to think that this is what men like to have presented to them (not all men of course). And its even more upsetting that women feed into the idea. I did love the movie and think it was hilarious, but its easier to think its funny because it is just acting, its just sad that it unfortunately happens in real life to. It was a great movie to choose for the film review.

Feministing Interview with CJ Pascoe

(Click the post title to link to the interview at Feministing.)

I'm sure most everyone has seen this by now, but I just found it today (I haven't let myself check Feministing all week in attempts to focus on finals) and figured I'd share it here just in case. For relevance: CJ Pascoe authored Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, an excerpt from which was one of our readings earlier in the semester. I found her discussion about what led her to masculinity studies as a concentration particularly interesting. It definitely raises some points for feminism as a movement to consider more thoroughly in moving forward.

New Song by Devo

Everybody loves Devo, and if you haven't heard of the band, I'm sure you've heard of the music ("Whip It" is a huge 80's song). On the way to work the other day I heard one of their newest and it was pretty catchy. It's called "Don't Shoot (I'm a Man)", and my analysis was it being about a "superhero" character getting up and doing his normal routine of work trying to save the world. Another interpretation I found was about a corporate male and the mundane life he leads. Either way, I'm sure I could be wrong, but I thought I'd post this to incite some thought and other interpretations. In relation to masculinity, it's another common example of male privilege, and the assumption that a male can only do this job. Then again it is "Devo", so who knows what it's really about.

Here are the lyrics:

I get up every day, it's a miracle I'm told

Somehow I live to work, so I hit the road

Squeeze into my hybrid car, drive as fast as I can

While I scan the rooftops, yeah I scan the rooftops

Don't shoot

I'm a man x2

I live in every city
All around the world

Sometimes it's way too hot

Sometimes it's friggin' cold

One thing's always the same

No matter what they say

There's way too many problems

Way, way too many problems

Don't shoot

I'm a man x2

You wish you were swinging from the trees

You wish you were slicing through the breeze

You wish you were king or a queen

You wish you'd hit the lottery

But wishing is for chumps

High hoping is for fools

They'll hunt you down and taze you bro

For playing with their rules

Don't shoot
I'm a man x2

I've got a big dilemma
To punt or go for broke

It's got me goin' sleepless

Well I'm about to choke

So let me ask you something
Answer if you can

Think before you answer

There is no correct answer

So Don't shoot, I'm a man
Don't shoot, I'm a man

Don't taze me bro x4

My Service Learning Project

For my service learning project this semester I've been working on a blog that discusses masculinity in music. I'm highly critical of my writing so I've been afraid to share this project until my blog had some substance. I was afraid that if I shared this early I wouldn't want to write about it anymore. It's still a work in progress that I'm hoping I will want to continue after this class ends. Here's the link:


http://masculinityinmusic.blogspot.com/

I hope you enjoy! Any questions, comments, concerns, and suggestions would be much appreciated!

Old Spice Commercial

So I'm sure most of you have seen this commercialsseveral times already. I know the first time I saw it, I thought it was funny because it was just completely ridiculous. As I watched it again, my feelings remain the same. I'm not sure if it's mocking this "real man" stereotype or actually feeding into what society has constructed as to be a "real man." Take a look and share what you think!

Commercial Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

A Girl Like Me

Yesterday I was flipping through channels before I had to go to work and I found a movie on Lifetime that looked interesting. It was called A Girl Like Me. This film was about a boy who felt he was a woman in a male body and eventually began to live her life as a transgender. Throughout the film it shows how hard life was for Eddie when she was younger before she began to look like a woman. Her grandmother refused to let her be the maid of honor in her sister's wedding and her uncle tried to force baseball on Eddie to try to make him more of a "man." This film was based on a true strory and Eddie was eventually killed by three teenage boys when they found out that she was actually male. The movie was very disturbing but the worst part was the court convictions at the end. Although the three boys were convicted of murder (one for manslaughter), he court refused to consider the crime a hate crime. As this was based on a true strory it got me thinking about the way society views transgenders, especially male transgenders. If this had been a crime against a black woman or male because of their race, the perpetrators would have been convicted of a hate crime. However, because this was a male posing as a female, the jury did not feel it was appropriate to call it a hate crime. And the defense lawyer was very adamant when trying to place blame on the victim for lying about her biological gender. I would highly recommend everyone to try and watch this film and possibly even place it into the curriculum of the class because it is very relevant, based on true events, and really shows, albeit sometimes a bit disturbing, how society views transgender men both inside and out of their own family circle.

Men’s Lib: To survive in a hostile world, guys need to embrace girly jobs and dirty diapers. Why it’s time to reimagine masculinity at work and at home.

This was a pretty interesting article in Newsweek.

Sissy Bounce

I forgot about the blog deadline, so I do hope I met the quota, but I've been intending to make this post for two weeks now anyway. Context: a few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were talking about how we were going to work out our cross-country drive from here to Tucson when I finally permanently move there and we decided we wanted to take a fifteen mile detour on I-10 to New Orleans. The second I said that, we started a rapid-fire back and forth of things we wanted to do, and one of the things he said he absolutely could not miss was "sissy bounce." I looked at him like he was an alien and asked for an explanation, and he directed me to Google.

Here's what I came up with: "Take some of the most hypersexual bump-and-grind you can imagine, remove everything but the sexed-up chorus, speed it up, and then remove the sexual identity of the artist performing it. What, what? That’s right. Sissy Bounce artists are purposely androgynous, sometimes referred to as queer, sometimes transgendered, a very direct intent is to fuck with people’s heads about sexuality. It’s easy to relate, or be offended when you see one sex singing about the other. But with Sissy Bounce you have no idea. This makes the performances just as important as the music itself, which is perhaps why it’s stayed locked down for so long."

I find the idea of taking the gender out of the context completely so fascinating. It's not a performance art based on hyper-masculine stereotypes, as we saw played upon in Venus Boyz, or campy drag performances, as in basically every Pride Parade ever, or even "passing" for either gender. It's entirely predicated on the idea that you will never be able to tell, and therefore the art speaks for itself, taken out of the paradigm of gender role expectations, male or female. And because I believe that the further along we are in women's liberation, the more readily apparent it is that men are still tied to the social expectations for acceptable behavior, I find this especially transgressive, but also promising, in terms of turning attitudes on their heads. Anyway, it's apparently really big in New Orleans and I think it would be a fascinating thing to watch. Also, the title is linked to the first article and group of videos I found, so if you're curious, I would start there.

Incredibly Sexist Vintage Ads

25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads

I came across these ads when looking up material for class and thought to share them on our wonderful blog. I'm a fan of vintage advertisements, purely for their design aesthetic and how audiences were targeted, but when I saw these I was shocked and also reminded of how far we've come (or maybe not at all). The two that I found the worst are above, the first demonstrating hyper-masculinity and the subjugation of women being domestic and subservient to their "male" counterparts. And lo and behold, if these "ideals" were broken or rejected than some kind of punishment is due, thus the woman being bent over and "corrected". I'm not sure how this ad was received back then but apparently privilege and hegemonic masculinity are tied to the quality of your coffee (and the character of your wife!). Starbuck's would definitely not fly with this one.

The second advertisement immediately made my jaw drop, and considering our present era of obsession to image, this wasted no time in getting it's point across (did they skip the idea of "subliminal messaging?"). The message I got was basically "lose the weight women, so you can fulfill a gender role that General Mills' deems useful to your existence--being skinny in household"! The only thing left I think would be a crying baby on her hip and a laundry basket on the other, what do you think? This is left to assume that masculinity is defined by what's happening outside the window, the bread-winning white-middle class man working hard to pay for EVERYTHING, down to the glass cleaner she's using. And while he's downing philly cheesesteaks on his break with the guys, she's busy cleaning the house in her Sears size 6 jumper. But I digress . . .

For more click here!

New Book to add to Course Curriculum?

I don't really remember how I heard about this book, probably from some news report, but I thought it would be worth checking out for this course. It's called "Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities" and I'm seriously considering buying it over the break and comparing it with the text we've already covered, all of which I've really enjoyed. I think the whole concept and effect that "masculinity" has in our culture is so interesting and relevant to every individual.

Here's the link to amazon.com for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Boyhoods-Rethinking-Masculinities-Ken-Corbett/dp/0300149840#_

Anita Hill vs Clarence Thomas

In another class of mine we have spoke about the case of Anita Hill accusing a supreme court justice of sexual harassment in the early 90's. We bought it up because apparently that man and his wife are wanting an apology from her to clear his name...ridiculous someone would ask for that after what she went through. I took some interest in the topic and found a news article on line and wanted to share it with everyone. I'm really not good with trying to make links but here it is..

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/20/scotus.thomas.hill/index.html

Survey found--Teens blame Rhianna for Chris Brown's abuse

So I know this is old news, but I'm always a little behind the pop culture curve. We already knew this, but the survey done by the Boston Public Health Commission confirms that we have a LOT of work left to do.

Here is the link to the original article--it' archived:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2009_03_13_Survey_finds_many_Hub_kids_placing_blame_on_Rihanna:_The_beat_goes_on/srvc=home&position=also

What's the Alternative to Tucker Max? Many progressive young men are rejecting traditional and toxic notions of masculinity. But they're still figuring out what should replace it.

I found this article and it seemed interesting especially because we were having that discussion in the last class about the men's groups we have on campus and the MVP training and I wondered if any of these men's groups have the same problem it seems these men were having finding an alternative to replace these toxic notions of masculinity.

Bullies Attack Boy Cheerleader :(

Talking about male cheerleaders in class yesterday reminded me of this news report. It's so sad that this young man can't even enjoy what he wants to do! I really don't see the difference between cheerleading and other recreational sports like football or soccer. One of the many things that bothered me in this news report was his mother saying that she was expecting her son to be teased and other "normal" boy behavior such a black eye or a bloody lip. When she said the phrase "boys will be boys" I cringed. I can't wait for the day when violence isn't associated as being "normal behavior" for males, young and old.

Catch the entire story here:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/report-bullies-attack-boy-cheerleader-11737068

Mauro Perucchetti's Modern Heroes

Click for full-size image. More pictures located here.

Although I've recently become a big fan of comic books, one consistent caveat in my ability to enjoy them is their adherence in portraying male characters to a very privileged, restrictive form of masculinity -- namely, "masculine" defined as "white, conventionally abled, middle- or upper-class, and heterosexual." While I've seen numerous in-depth critiques of the portrayal of female characters in comic books (and rightfully so), I haven't seen the related issue of limited variety in images of masculinity addressed as fully or as often, which is one reason I was so interested by this sculpture by Mauro Perucchetti. Because of the confines of its subjects, the work doesn't address issues of race, class, ability, etc. as constructs of normative masculinity in comics. It does, however, provide an alternative reading of one of the fundamental relationships in the DC Comics universe that challenges this pervasive notion in comic-book culture that defines all men as hypermasculine and all masculinity as necessarily heterosexual.

Sport Privilege

After our discussion last night, I came home to watch one of my shows on my DVR. I am a fan of the Hellcats show on the CW about a college cheerleading team. This last episode, which is available to watch at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/hellcats/pledging-my-love/?play=f9bd97d9-0e18-414c-b870-f162710626ff , was very related to our discussion. It talked about the privilege of football players after it was found out that a certain start player was behind sending out nude photos of one of the female cheerleaders. The football player, the coach, the professor, and even the male cheerleader explained how he would not be punished for doing so because he was a football player. It also talks about how gay males are treated on sports teams. The player that sent out the pictures turns out to be gay, and when the cheerleader who's pictures were sent out around campus threatens to out him, she gets scolded by her teammate and boyfriend. They say that the punishment does not fit the crime because if he is outed he will not be able to play professional football. It is a very relevant episode to our last discussion. Everyone should check it out.

Dinosaur Comics

Some info on the Men Against Violence group featured in Macho!

You can buy the film here:
http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c527.shtml
Typical documentary priciness : (

You can find a lot of information about the group by searching "Men Against Violence Association Nicaragua" or "Hombres Contra la Violencia Nicaragua"

Some of the info I found...

In English
As presenters at a conference also with Dean Peacock:
http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-Analysis/Library/Working-With-Men-to-End-Violence-Against-Women-in-the-Context-of-Globalization

An 'case study' on the Family Violence Prevention Fund site:
http://toolkit.endabuse.org/Resources/TheAssociation.html

Love this quote:
"How is it then that a group of men came together to challenge the culture of machismo and violence? Well, the Sandinista revolution gave us the opportunity to work in the struggle for social justice side by side with women, and some of us learned to work in partnership with women. We also learned to listen to women, and they have taught us that gender violence is a power issue embedded within the machismo culture. Thus, we realized that in order to build egalitarian and fair relationships we had to tackle our culture of machismo."

To read more about women in the Sandinista revolution, you can check out the book Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas by Karen Kampwirth--available in the UCF library.

In Spanish
An interview with one of the founders Javier Munoz:
http://www.euram.com.ni/pverdes/Entrevista/javier_munoz_137.htm

And I think this article about the network of men's group started with the same organization:
http://www.europrofem.org/contri/2_05_es/es-masc/13es_mas.htm

They talk a little about la Red Nacional de Mujeres Contra la Violencia (National Network of Women Against Violence) and talk about a little about how the different organizations working on gender and violence in Nicaragua are related.

Peace y si se puede! :-)

Feminism Survey: Men on the Street

Watch this YouTube video about Feminism! In this video they interviewed men on the street to find out what they thought about feminism. I thought you might enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pdbnzFUsXI

Thanksgiving

Everyone loves the holidays because it is a time when families can get together and spend quality time. My family hardly ever gets to spend this time together because my uncles live in Kansas and rarely get to visit. However this past week they did for the holidays so that was great. Yet it has been awhile since I have seen them and it was an interesting Thanksgiving to say the least. As we sat together around the table (it is my mom, my sister, myself, 3 uncles and an aunt) I saw the way our family contributes to the idea of the man or men being in charge of the household while the women are expected to do the "women's work" in order to satisfy them. Not only did we eat steak for thanksgiving because my uncles didn't want turkey or ham, but my mom and aunt did all the cooking and I was chastised for not cooking with them. Number one, I'm not a very good cook, but number two, why do my uncles get to sit around and be lazy without helping but its wrong if I sit with them. After we ate dinner my mom and aunt began to clear the table and one of my uncles looked at me and asked why I didn't jump up to help, so I asked why don't you get up and help. My mom quickly stepped in and told me to help and I also got a nasty look from my uncle. Now don't get me wrong, I love my family very much, but until now I never really took the time to step back and see how we as a family contribute to keeping men in charge and making women subordinate...I also look at the demographic background and wonder if my uncles living in such a small town contributes to the idea that this is way things should be, but that makes it worse and even more sad that mindsets of people in different areas of the world (or the US in this case) can make it even that more difficult to understand why women and men in the household should be equal in their contributions to the family life. My uncles are planning another trip in march and I do have intentions of coming up with some ways to put them on edge with our "family time" and I will definitely do my best to force them to step out of the box (and that refers to the act-like-a-man box) to hopefully help them see what they are doing. It should make for a good trip and I have to say I am looking forward to it... :)

Unpacking Uncrate

Uncrate, the Buyers Guide for Men is a website devoted to showing products presumably geared towards masculine consumption. I stumbled on the website a couple days ago, and I continue to visit it not because I find the items especially alluring, but because of how ridiculous some of these products are. The prices of the stuff they show vary, but the vast majority of the items are only affordable by individuals who possess a large amount of expendable income (not many men can afford a $190,000 speaker system)

Due to this unrealistic tendency, the website reveals how masculine consumerism is generally incumbent upon fantasy. Furthermore, this is a good example of how such fantasy is intrinsically linked towards a certain cultural sentiment, implying to consumers that the things white, upper class, and urban dwelling men want are the same things that appeal to all men. I suspect that this outlook isn't specific to this publication; which of these popular mens magazines truly caters to a diverse range of masculinities? Hence, Uncrate is contributing to a preexisting outlook about what the masculine consumer looks like, an outlook that is culturally pervasive.

Also, who says that Kanye West's latest album or DNA ancestry portraits are gendered products, anyway?