October 10, 2018
Page 13
O PINION
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We Need to Talk About Masculinity
Need to change
the discussion
J ill r iCharDson
When we dis-
cuss sexual assault,
we often talk about
women.
What
should women do
to stay safe? When I
was in school, girls
were even trained in women’s
self-defense. I don’t know what
the boys did during those time pe-
riods. Study hall?
Ask any woman what she does
to prevent sexual assault and she’ll
have an answer. She uses the bud-
dy system when walking at night,
or she carries pepper spray, or she
doesn’t leave her drink unattended
when she’s out, and so on.
We look out for one another. In
college I had a friend with an al-
cohol problem. We’d babysit her
or take her home to keep her safe
if she drank too much, to keep her
from getting assaulted.
Ask a man what he does to keep
himself from getting assaulted. At
most, you’ll get a “don’t drop the
soap” joke.
I think we need to change the
discussion. Let’s talk about mas-
culinity. Actually, gender scholars
talk about masculinities, plural.
by
Men express their gender iden-
tities in a variety of ways. Some
believe that “being a man” re-
quires honesty, courage, hard
work, and competence.
Others express masculinity
through physical prowess,
toughness, and daring.
And some think it means
sexual prowess with women.
Many gender scholars say
that gender is something you
weakness, my father told him to
“be a tough hombre.” My brother
suffered from severe anxiety and
probably PTSD. He didn’t need
to be told to man up. He needed
hugs, empathy, love and therapy.
For straight men who empha-
size the performance of sexual
prowess, sex with women is nec-
essary to achieving masculinity —
and women saying no puts a road-
block in their path to being a man.
empathy, serves to create a toxic
culture in which some men be-
lieve they have a right to women’s
bodies.
So when women deny them
access to their bodies, some men
take it by force.
In fact, a Five Thirty Eight re-
view of recent studies suggested
that this kind of toxic masculini-
ty, more so than alcohol, is what
leads to sexual assault.
For straight men who emphasize the performance of
sexual prowess, sex with women is necessary to achieving
masculinity — and women saying no puts a roadblock in
their path to being a man. For these men, it’s inconvenient
that they don’t have carte blanche access to our bodies.
do, not something you are. Your
gender expression is something
you achieve.
When men or boys express
emotions other than anger, show
vulnerability, or do anything that
can be remotely construed as
“feminine,” they’re linguistically
kicked out of manhood, told to
“man up” or “grow a pair.”
I saw my father socializing
my brother into his future role as
a man from a very young age. If
my brother cried or expressed any
For these men, it’s inconvenient
that they don’t have carte blanche
access to our bodies.
It doesn’t help that vulnerabili-
ty is “unmanly,” or that we social-
ize men to repress their emotions
instead of feeling them, because
those are necessary ingredients in
a healthy intimate relationship.
Obviously, this doesn’t charac-
terize all men. However, the pres-
sure on men to achieve masculini-
ty through sexual prowess, devoid
of any emotional vulnerability or
Maybe if we raised men to feel
their full range of emotions, to
feel confident in their manhood
without violating women, and to
respect the boundaries of others,
we wouldn’t have to teach women
to use the buddy system and watch
their drinks.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is pursuing a PhD
in sociology at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in
San Diego. Distributed by Other-
Words.org.
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