Redefining Masculinity

This is a great article from NY Magazine about how to raise boys.


A Call to Men is an organization designed for coaches, teachers and parents on how to help mentor boys to a healthier version of masculinity.

Speaking Frankly: Raising Boys, a documentary from CBS focuses on the issues with masculinity and redefining it in a way that is both realistic and healthy.

This article from the NY Times called, Teaching Men to be Emotionally Honest.  

How is boys’ performance in school related to masculinity? 

What research does social psychology provide about males at a young age (1-5yrs) and at older ages (teen years)?

How does the growing number of women on college campuses affect men?

What are some ways that colleges specifically, and society in general, can help males have a healthier self-identity?

Psychology Today explaining the danger of "Boys must boys"

The Goodmen Project is a website dedicated to helping men including this piece on the danger of Boys will be Boys.

From Gillette:

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/gillette-ad-campaign-best-a-man-can-get-we-believe-toxic-masculinity-progress/

And from Dove:

Gender Lesson 5: masculinity and replicating Mahler's research

If you did not get to finish the reading,  here is an annotated version of the Mahler article.  Please read it now.

After reading the article, answer question 1 below.  Here is the Google Form for answering the questions this lesson.
1.  What is Mahler (and Kimmel)'s overall claim?



After understanding Mahler and Kimmel's claim and evidence,  we will attempt to replicate and update their qualitative research.   Their qualitative analysis of existing data on school shooters examined random school shootings in major print media outlets (Time, Newsweek, US News, USA Today, NY Times, LA Times). Below are two lists of school shootings to get started.

First, choose at least one of the random school shooters after 2001.

• Wikipedia list of school shootings since 2000 
• MotherJones data set of all mass shootings (under the "location" column, see schools) 

Second, after choosing a shooter to research, use major news outlets to gather data about some of the school shooters from 2001-present.
Make a note of the shooter's:

• gender 
• race
• state (red or blue in 2001) 
• community: urban, suburban, rural
• other qualitative info about them such as music, video games, movies, parent status, mental illness, social status/teased, et al...

You may want to use the ILC newspaper search to find info about the shooters, or Google their names.  Here are a few other websites to help you find info:
GunViolence.org
Everytown research
Mass Shooting Tracker
TheTrace compiles articles and data related to shootings at thetrace.org
NRA gun law tracker

Maps for comparing red/blue states:

Results of 2000 election.

The map above shows current laws for carrying firearms.

2.  What shooter(s) did you research?

3.  What was the shooter's race?

4.  What was the shooter's gender?

5.  What community setting did the shooting occur in?

6.  Was the shooting in a red state or blue state?

7.  What other details about the shooter were revealed?

After you have entered the data above for at least one school shooter, hypothesize whether Mahler and Kimmel's research still holds up.

8.  Do you think that since 2001, Mahler and Kimmel's claim is still true about who shoots up schools and why?


9.  Answer any of the following questions about this lesson.

• Does your data correlate with what the rest of the class found?
• What do you think of the findings?
• Is this data interesting/insightful?  Why/why not?
• Can you see the connection between masculinity and violence?
• Do you think that the average American would have trouble understanding the connection?  Why?
• What questions do you still have?

Finally,  try to apply the research to other random shootings besides schools.  Search the websites that you used earlier.  Again, you may want to use the ILC newspaper search to find info about the shooters, or Google their names.  Here are a few other websites to help you find info:
GunViolence.org
Everytown research
Mass Shooting Tracker
TheTrace compiles articles and data related to shootings at thetrace.org
NRA gun law tracker

Find one example of a random shooting that did not occur at a school.

10.  Does Mahler and Kimmel's research apply to NON-SCHOOL random shootings?

Tough Guise Day 2

 Today we continued watching Tough Guise about how our society socializes boys in a narrow and limited way.  

Yesterday we saw that masculinity has been portrayed in Western movies only for around the last 75 years or so.  But examining the older tropes of masculinity, it is evident that the portrayal of masculinity in movies, sports, toys and other areas have all become more extreme.

Today we will see that one reason the masculinity has become more extreme is a reaction to increasing equality for minorities - especially women and non-heterosexuals.

Begin from 37:31 A Culture in Retreat Watch Tough Guise 2 on mediacast by clicking here.

• Along with the change of society came changes in the acceptance of women as equal and changes in gay rights.  Fear of the changes in society is filtered throughout society via politics and media.  Guns are a symptom of the fear of the changes. There is a siege mentality that promotes rugged individualism and gun ownership as a way of fighting back both literally and figuratively.  Guys today are taught that violence is the only way to be really considered a man and to hold onto their manhood. 
• Because our construction of masculinity includes the idea that anything feminine is inherently NOT masculine, as the box of what is acceptible for women has gotten larger, the box for males has gotten smaller.  This includes denigrating anything that is female or gay.  And, this creates a dangerous anti-female attitude.
• Finally, he ends with the idea that we can all make little changes in how we talk and act and think. We can support movies that show honest portrayals of guys and movies that help broaden the box that guys fit into.