Discussion
Taking a break from the normal cybers to say this:
Men, if you aren't actively holding your peers accountable for SA, misogyny, or any other form of discrimination/abuse of women, you are the problem too. And if more of your energy is going into explaining why you aren't the problem than actively helping, guess what?
There's more to this. I surround myself with people that don't do any of that, but I am still shamed for things like that. I keep my community clean, but am told that's not enough.
Plus, I challenge the mainstreaming of thsoe ideas is the effect, and not the cause. Policing our side of the fence is only treating the wound.
@infoseclogger Don't think I said it was effect. And yes, I'm explicitly saying that is not enough.
I don't talk about this a lot but I have struggled my whole life with this culture's idea of masculinity. Like I'm fine with my personal gender expression, but it actually bothers me that I am in the same bucket as, for lack of a better term, bros. There's some other version of masculinity that needs to ascend, and put that particular monster back into a cage.
I wish I had a better answer, but in my view the best place to win this battle is in elementary and middle school. Boys need to see different kinds of role models than what our culture has provided. My experience teaching (including in boys' schools) tells me how important role models are. "I wanna be like him" is a driving force.
re: SA, sexism, misogyny, etc.
I think this is an important building brick for those boys that I've never really understood myself while being part of the same group.
There are other early interventions as well that don't necessarily put boys into the focus of attention:
Empowering non-boys to be themselves and opposing male dominance behavior. "I want to be liked by them." is a driving force as well.
Also, letting kids choose what surrounding they want to be in instead of separating them into boys and girls and nothing else. Not forcing kids to play in a group of bullies just because they appear to have a penis.
In Germany there is a whole research field around this, and an association (Dissens) that publishes a lot about it. Unfortunately i. German, but if you're interested maybe automated translation will help.
https://www.dissens.de/geschlechterreflektierte-paedagogik-geschlecht-bildung
@mttaggart It may help to remember that, when you look at our culture broadly, you see multiple ideas of masculinity out there. For instance, two models I had growing up were Mr. Spock and Mr. Rogers, both of whom express their masculinity rather differently than, say, the "Marlboro Man" (and somewhat differently from each other, as well).
@JMarkOckerbloom Mr. Rogers is a very good example, but it is absolutely not what we, culturally, put on a pedestal. Same with Spock and Kirk.
And in Trek, let's remember that even Picard became more warlike as the series went on. This is endemic.
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@mttaggart As I'm currently learning through the discourse around Cornell, there's a horrifying number of men who think "well I haven't raped anyone" and then think that makes them a good person deserving of praise, when it really just means they haven't tripped over the bar which is currently in hell.