What would happen if every time someone asked you, “how are you?” or “how’s it going?” or “how was your weekend?” you actually answered truthfully, and not took it as a mere pleasantry. In this testimonial, author, Evan Porter, challenges himself to this very task. Requiring himself to not only be in touch with what…
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…
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…
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…
A novel that is as beautiful and charming as it is devastating and heartbreaking. Yanagihara follows the lives and friendships of four men who meet as college roommates. At 700 pages, there is nothing superficial or surface-level about the exploration of masculinities and the trials of friendship. I do not want to give too much…
Masculinity, or manhood, as it is most commonly understood in Western culture, is determined by a set of criteria placed always just out of reach of the striving man. The result is not only constant attempts at proving one’s manhood, but the perpetual failure to succeed in all realms: financial, physical, sexual. Dr. Nerdlove (not…
Beginning in 1938, Harvard researchers spent 75 years studying men to determine what traits, behaviors, lifestyle choices, environment factors, etc. lead to a happy life. Spoiler alert: the single most important factor to a happy life is love. But love is impacted by many elements. This exhaustive study provides interesting insight into what makes or…