More Than A Magazine, A Movement
People think it’s so obvious the shooters are young men that there’s literally no point in saying so. In that sense, ‘gunman’ is internally redundant; everyone knows that ‘man’ follows ‘gun.’
As long as men, young and old, have easy access to high-capacity killing machines at the same time their society furnishes them with endless heroic masculine narratives about redemptive violence, the next tragedy is always going to be just around the corner.
As women from Tehran to Texas continue to fight fearlessly for basic respect and human rights, men have a choice to make: Do you stand with those women? Or do you sit this one out?
Will you go out and vote as an act of solidarity with the women you love and have always claimed to respect and support?
A new book shines an intriguing new light on the possibilities for alliances among women in the ongoing struggle to end men’s violence against women by examining the social organization of one of our closest primate relatives. In The Bonobo Sisterhood, Harvard Law School professor Diane Rosenfeld shows how we have much to learn from the bonobos about how to eliminate male sexual coercion.
“Patriarchy is not inevitable; the bonobos are living proof of that.”
If media commentators want to provide their audiences with deeper insights into the nature of the dangerous escalation in violent rhetoric and action that has accompanied the rise of Donald Trump and the radicalization of the GOP, examining the relationship between masculinities and violence is a good place to start.
At a time of growing authoritarianism, it is crucial to understand how right-wing demagogues tap into mythology to convince their followers that they are part of something redemptive and heroic. And gender is at the heart of our national mythology.
Reclaiming white men’s position at the top of American society is one of the animating themes of Trumpism as a sociocultural and political force.
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson recently signed a huge five-year contract for $230 million, even though he faces 22 civil lawsuits from women alleging sexual assault and abuse.
Children and adolescents often identify strongly with their sports heroes, clinging to their every word on social media, wanting to play like them, dress like them, and act like them. For this reason, it is especially important that the male sports culture—one of the most influential bastions of patriarchal privilege—takes a bold and unflinching approach to star athletes who have perpetrated sexual violence. The powerful message this sends to kids and adults is that men’s sexual violence against women is not “normal,” and will not be tolerated.
Most mainstream coverage about the horrific massacre in Buffalo has focused, quite rightly, on racism. But there is more to the story. The killer is not just a young white person. He is a young white man. For us to have any hope of preventing future such incidents, and effectively countering the belief systems and social forces that produced him and so many others, we need to understand the complex intersections of race and gender that lie at the heart of these ongoing tragedies.
As our fragile democracy faces growing threats from exactly the sort of right-wing terrorism on display last weekend in Buffalo, we ignore this gendered element at our peril.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, masterminded and led by Putin, is an act of premeditated military aggression and mass violence. One critical element of the story—especially as it concerns the role of the U.S. in this debacle—continues to lurk just beneath the surface of mainstream political analysis: the ways in which white male identity politics has helped to shape the American right’s confused and sometimes counterintuitive responses to the Russian attack.
During the Super Bowl on Sunday, most of the rappers featured on the biggest stage in the world are known not only for their great talent, wealth and power, but for their misogynous attitudes—and in some cases abusive behavior—toward women, and some of the most gratuitously anti-woman lyrics ever.
“Dr. Dre, Snoop and Em have reached such an elevated status that it’s important to take a step back and think about their body of work. Read or recite their lyrics out loud and you will hear just how anti-woman their music has been over the past 20 years—and not just their music.”
While it is critically necessary to analyze the racial politics of January 6, this focus too often has the effect of rendering invisible another key aspect of that tragic event: the role of gender. The vast majority of insurrectionists were not only white people; they were white men.
Men—many of whom are conditioned from childhood to see themselves primarily as protectors and defenders—are the ones who respond most eagerly to pleas for them to help rescue their country, through violent means if necessary.
