Terry Crews one of the first celebrity men we highlighted on The Bridges We Burn. Even before self-identifying as a survivor of sexual violence, Crews has used his platform as a celebrity to speak out against toxic masculinity. Perhaps more importantly Crews has been an active embodiment, model, and be a vocal proponent for healthy masculinities. In this…
Dear friends, I could easily construct many years’ worth of New Masculinities Playlists drawing exclusively from the catalog of one artist: Prince. If you’re a regular reader of this website, or even a casual observer of masculinities in popular culture, you already know why. Prince’s incomparable discography, iconography, and public persona were the very sound…
I recently met a very sweet and compassionate 83-year old woman who took a great interest in my work. Despite our age and generational differences, her social and political outlook was not that different than mine. In a few instances where our thoughts were not aligned, we were able to have respectful dialogue, and I…
It’s April! It’s springtime! Dear listeners, as you’re tucking away your sweaters for the season, planting some veggies in the garden, rolling down your car windows, and doing whatever else you do as the weather warms, I hope you’ll also turn up this month’s entry to the New Masculinities Playlist: “The Boy” by Shannon and…
Popular culture presents no shortage of great examples of men who embody a toxic and unhealthy masculinities. Equally problematic is that too often these bad examples aren’t presented as such; in fact, they are often presented as the ideal. Instead of valorizing violent and emotionally-disconnected ways of being a man, we need to promote and encourage tender men: Men who…
I don’t know if Mercury is retrograde or what, but this last week has been a struggle. This video came across my Facebook feed recently and I knew that it was perfect for kicking off the new blog feature. So here we go! Check out this 60 Second Doc about Louis Boria, a man in…
Dear readers, as you probably know, there’s a radical, political showcase of Black excellence holding the zeitgeist right now: Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther film. Diving into the universe of this film has topped any other new masculinities experiences related to music that I’ve had in February. I encourage you to put any song from Black…
Anxiety manifests in a number of ways. For those of us who struggle with it, our coping mechanisms can be as unique as the people who experience it. For Toronto-based Chris Grady, father of two young children, and elementary school teacher, creating short, sweet, and thoughtful webcomics has become one outlet for his anxiety. Featuring short interactions…
