Toxic Masculinity

Thomas McMillen 

Thus far the class, Women and Media, has allowed me to realize that feminist thought and study is crucial for the understanding of how our society functions. Prior to my participation in this class I thought I was going to learn about women theory and the history of women’s representation and participation in media. Although I have learned about these subjects, as this is my first women's studies class, I imagined I would learn about these issues as an outsider looking in. I am a male and have unintentionally benefitted from this sex in many ways that were not overtly told to me. I understood through my education the inequalities found within our society and I understood my privileges resulting from it. I entered this class wanting to learn about this subject in order to use my privilege to aid to the liberation of our society from preconceived notions of capability through race, gender and ethnicity. However, something I was not expecting to take away from this class was how patriarchy has molded my identity and interests without my consent or consciousness. 

After learning about how stigmas of gender roles are produced regardless of how one’s parents raised them through social settings and perceived notions, I began to relook at my decisions as a child. Most importantly, I began to think about how when I was a child I dropped out of art classes to pursue soccer practices and WWE events. Although, sports and wrestling brought me great joy as a child and I participated in them willingly, I could not shake the memory of me telling my parents I did not want to take art classes and their resulting astonishment, however, willingness to allow me to do so.  

Therefore, for my final project I want to produce a video surrounding the issue of the negative effects patriarchy has on adolescent development. I am a videographer and create my art through iMovie. I will be asking my male friends to tell me things they did as children that were perceived as “girly” without context. I want them to feel the embarrassment and comedic nature of the things they did as a child that were unmasculine and will be following it up with questions on either what their fathers or coaches advised them to do as a result or what made them stop doing those actions. I then want to take the examples they give me and visually recreate them in the video. I want to use their examples and information from the class to project the problems of these actions and create solutions we can teach moving forward. I want to show the video to my friends after to allow them a chance to forgive themselves of traits they felt were once unbecoming of a man and educate themselves on how to be better men and eventually fathers. I believe my work will be a way to teach my friends everything I received out of the class without attacking them with information that has shaped their identities and outlooks.