What did you miss last week in the realm of masculinities and gender equity news? We’ll tell ya!
This week Masculinities 101 hosted the second installment of Clay Darcy’s pub crawl narrative “drinking Down Masculinity.” In this series Darcy shows us just how much a gender lens can add to the way we see even the most everyday experiences.
On Thursday, The Guardian hosted a live Q&A session on how the development sector can engage men and boys toward gender equality. The panel included leaders of NGOs all over the world that are doing this important work.
The Shriver Report partnered with The Good Men Project to produce a list of what they believe to be the top 10 issues affecting men in 2014. Check out their list and let us know if you agree. Is there anything missing? Is there anything there that you think isn’t really an issue?
Also, a few weeks ago we briefly discussed the backlash against New York Mets player Daniel Murphy taking paternity leave. As you may recall, two New York sports talk-show hosts suggested that his wife should have scheduled a pre-emptive C-section rather than the player missing any games. But, this week, that scandal has led to a deeper discussion of paternity leave. You can find some of that discussion on Slate and on Ordinary Times.
Alli Lindner
Amanda Kennedy
Amelie Rives
Anders Wallace
andrewmorrisongurza
Anna Sofie Bach
anthoknees
Brent Strang
cherylllewellyn
Clay Darcy
Alison Afra
Markus Gerke
heidirademacher
Kolbe Franklin
jmesz001
jonathangrove
malarid
Masculinities 101
Peter
Natascha Yogachandra
Tara Fannon
Tal Peretz
I’ve got some thoughts about that list. First of all, the “disposability” issue. The fact that men are sent to war first can be interpreted as disposability, I guess. But it is also indicative of male privilege and power–these men become “heroes” celebrated for their sacrifice defending all those weak and defenseless women they’re supposedly protecting. not to mention that those wars lead to the deaths of countless civilians, many of them women, and that women are the disposable spoils of war, the bodies that get raped and killed by conquerors. Patriarchy celebrates war. Yes, men are killed, but I take issue with interpreting this as society treating men as disposable. And my sense is that when we look at war, and when we look at labor, what we see is actually the disposability of only certain men–racial minorities (who are likely sent to the frontlines), migrants, and poor men (the ones we turn our backs on when it comes to the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs).
And that brings me to a second point–why doesn’t this list talk about race? Point 10 mentions racism, and a brief and passing mention in “raising boys,” but no one says a thing about race when talking about the prison industrial complex?! Wow. There is a very specific group of men being locked up disproportionately–black men. To ignore that fact is to ignore the actual meaning of the term “prison industrial complex” (Angela Davis) which sees for profit prisons and prison labor as almost a new kind of slavery. And nothing about race in sports, even though the NFL is a key example used in the list, and there is incredible racial disparity in that establishment. All in all, I’m disappointed by the myopic view this list presents, the lack of intersectional thinking. Apparently the only difference this list can see is sexuality. I think that men’s activism can take race and class seriously, but this list is a pretty sad example.