“Lets get back to the toxic masculinity problem, when 1 out of every 5 women on campus has been subjected to some form of sexual assault, and we don’t seem to be making effective change, then yes, I applaud these men for wanting to take a look at things they may be complicit in that keeps these statistics and cultural institutions alive.”
The first thing we need to do is eradicate the jock culture. But the second thing that we also need to do is eradicate the black out from drinking culture, and there men and women are both complicit. I drank underage when in college, but never blacked out to my knowledge.
I have a hard time with “jock culture”…there’s that word culture + something again! It paints in too broad of brush strokes. Teams are always going to have the potential to bond…and it’s encouraged. Work teams. Sports teams. Emergency response teams. Marching bands. Quiz Bowl teams. As far as sports, frankly there is just as much “girl sports culture” as there is “boy sports culture” and anytime you have a team there will be bonding, there will be leaders and followers and much of the “culture” of any given team is derived from the coach or the manager and the team leadership…so look “higher” than the “team” and the individuals on the team, if you want culture change.
It’s not the men. It’s not the women. It’s all the men and women and how they control their individual behaviors and where they model their behaviors. Look higher. College administrators need to look inward if they want to change their campus cultures - not put it on the kids to do so. Administrators need to be held to a higher standard. They need to be fair and impartial. They need to lead, not follow. The college would have a ton more traction if A) they didn’t try to run this program directed toward men under the auspices of the “women’s center” and B) if they would have taken the leadership position that it was a UVa initiative rather than abdicating to 4 students and C) if they would not have used a derogatory word like “toxic” for the name of the program. It’s THAT simple.
If you really want a turn-around story in sports…since we now are using “jock culture” read up on coach Dantonio here in my state and the campus is different over the past decade also.
What does UVa have to do with this thread??? And the Women’s Center was simply gracious enough to lend them their space and help advertise the program. They had nothing else to do with it.
This does not cancel out Tucker Max, though it’s a start.
I am glad my boys have been raised with a very strong mother and sister. My W is tough enough to get called a b-word regularly while being a kind and considerate person. She never backs down from men trying to yell over her.
Just like the boomers got rid of some of the most obvious Jim Crow laws, the current crop of kids is taking on some of the more subtle ones. Faith communities and old people will resist and gripe, just like 1962 at Ole Miss, but the kids will get progress.
Tucker Max is precisely the type that gives the rest of men a bad name. Chronicling your intimate exploits on the internet naming names? I am surprised men didn’t step in and straighten him out. What he did to Miss Vermont was unconscionable but he is protected by the First Amendment.
Apparently in the last 18 months he has married and now has a child of his own. He has professed to changing his ways – how convenient. His latest project is helping men understand why women feel so vulnerable about harassment – he should certainly know.
They are out there. I just don’t think there is the market for books/speakers who specialize in gender issues/critiques among men the way there seems to be among women
Just don’t read his beer book Ohiodad…I made that mistake when one of the boys was home from college several years ago and left the book on the coffee table…
LOL Ahl it was probably Christmas of 2009 so a long time ago and thinking back and all I recall was saying something like many men between 18 and 28 have sh blank blank for brains and I hope to heaven you guys don’t do this crap. The massive drinking stories bothered me more than all the hookup stories. For every stupid immature male there is a stupid immature woman. Apparently he grew up as all kids do and leads a normal life.
It just occurred to me that there are many “coming of age” books that my boys read. Duke might have gotten more traction with a men’s book club and discussion group. My kids also like Cormac McCarthy, Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Jim Harrison, Peter Mattiessen…so many books, so many authors to start dialogues about what it means to be male…Toxic is just such an offensive word…sigh.
Perhaps people are becoming against the whole idea of there even being a feminine and a masculine in any way, shape, or form, toxic or non-toxic. Any difference between men and women is supposed to be erased in the name of equality. According to my women’s studies course, men are women are more alike than different physiologically. It’s all that social conditioning that makes people act one way or another. Maybe eventually there will be no meaning to male or female. It isn’t supposed to define your gender, since physical features apparently have no bearing on who you are. Why stop there?
