Terry Crews doesn’t necessarily look like what we think of when someone says, “feminist.” All the more reason that Crews is an adamant messenger of feminist values, actively working to disempower stereotypes of masculinity. Crews challenges the notion of male pride in an effort to encourage empathy and understanding. By challenging the concept of gender…
bell hooks asserts that the only emotion men are empowered to express in patriarchal culture is anger. Boys are not encouraged to feel and express a range of emotions, and are often told that fear, sadness, insecurity, or loneliness are signs of weakness and “unmanly.” As a result, many men grow up not knowing how…
Like David Bowie before him, Prince helped liberate masculinity from rigid gender stereotypes and constraints by embodying a fabulous, sexy, and defiantly non-conforming identity. Prince’s identity was maybe perfectly summated in his 1984 song,“I Would Die 4 U,” which features the lyric: “I’m not a woman. I’m not a man. I’m something that you’ll never…
Domestic violence and sexual violence are ultimately acts of power and control, which can be embodied and enacted in a variety of ways. It can be difficult to see our own relationships as violent or abusive if our partner does not use physical force against us. In this article, Kristina Brandt tells the story of…
To get to the root of rape culture, and to create systemic changes to sexism and patriarchal domination, it is not sufficient to blame the media, or music, video games, or alcohol as the cause of violent behavior. Rather, we have to look at the ways entitlement and violence are socialized in boys as they…
I know that as a child I watched Mister Rogers. But today, I couldn’t tell you what the show is about. I could sing some of the theme song, and I know he changed his shoes and put on a cardigan. But after reading these quotations, many of them from his book, I know that…
The internet is ripe with listicles and click-bait, but this article is the real deal. Examining dating through a feminist lens, author Nora Samaran, explores what it means–tangibly, realistically, practically–for cis-males to no simply call themselves a feminist, but to put that into action, to live their politics. With a focus on intersectional privilege and…
“The family, friends, and neighbors of our communities are untapped resources in the movement to end intimate violence. They are the people who want to help, but aren’t sure where to start. Restorative justice provides an invitation to the table and the vision: the restoration of healthy human beings and relationships, and the empowerment of…
