Blog 4: Indigenous, Settler-colonists and genders.Blog 4:

It is easy to determine that opinions all over the world are different from one another, whether they be complete polar opposites, or simple details being different. But why are there so many different ideas? Who are leading these opposing ideals and why are people siding with different sides. A very controversial topic that is a subject to this situation, would be the question of their own views on gender and sexuality, not only that, but gender roles and power. Thanks to the documentary that I’ve watched, and getting to see Glen Gear in person at school, I’ve determined a lot of differences and I’ll be glad to share them with you. Though still not heard of as much, gender equality, as well as sexuality and transgender rights have become a more open topic, as more and more people are opening up about their experiences and who they are. A great example of completely different views on gender choices would be Indigenous and European Colonists. Indigenous people seem a lot more understanding and accepting of the new world’s views on gender equality, sexuality and many other things, whereas European’s struggle to understand these ideas.

To begin, a key difference in society seen in Indigenous and Colonists, would be their lifestyle and how they organize their community to function properly. The Native people always made it fair to both men, and women. Europeans mainly gave power to men, mainly in politics, but as well as almost everywhere else. Whereas Indigenous allowed their women to hold power, sometimes having a female leader, something Colonists would have never done. Proven with the document “Keough & Campbell: Gender and DIversity in Early Contact Period”, we read a lot about how Indigenous showed respect to both genders, sharing equally important and complicated jobs between one another to work together as a group, to fight and survive. “Although men cleared the land, women planted, tended, and harvested the crops; and when men brought meat home from hunting, it went to matrilocal households, where decisions about its distribution among community members were made by women.” (Keough and Campbell 18)

To follow up, certain people claim that it is against their religion to even fathom the idea of being gay, non-binary, much less being transgender. To others, it is spiritual and completely normal.  Obviously, not all situations are of this matter, there will be a few exceptions, such as Tony Zosherafatain, the star of the documentary “Trans in Trumpland” and his mothers relationship, who took some time to accept that her daughter, now son, would undergo gender changing surgeries. Tony and his mother had difficulties seeing eye to eye, making it really hard for one another to hold a good relationship. She eventually did find peace with it, unfortunately a little late, as she had died not long after, making their good relationship short-lived.

To finish up, there was a lot of tension back then, as native people saw no need in participating in the same type of democracy and ideals as the Europeans, causing a lot of conflict, as they both believed they had the right idea, views and lifestyle.

In conclusion, there are multiple differences in worldviews between Settle-colonists and Indigenous. Differences in the way they view gender roles, how they view politics and even gender itself. 

Gaming Communities.

Video games have been out for a while now, bringing many people together, playing and finding similar interests to one another. Multiplayer games, such as League of Legends, CS:GO and many among these have built a community within one another and grew bigger and bigger.

CS:GO

League of Legends

Unfortunately, video games have been mostly dominated by the male gender and continues, to this day, to still by lead by men. However in the more recent days, women have started being more and more present in the world of games.

But back then, because men have dominated this area of content, when women were present, a lot of misogyny and sexism would be present. Calling them slurs and insulting them for participating in something they do not “belong” in. Common insults being that women should be in the kitchen, asking them to make them, the men, a sandwich or that they are dishwashers. Unfortunately, this is still present in our current days when playing video games, however, it has become less present as men have progressed in a positive way and non downgrading.

Though most comments to women in game are mean insults, there are also cases where men will “hit” on the girl, making her very uncomfortable and not knowing how to react. Often times, when the girl does not reciprocate, the men will take this personally and “throw” the game, meaning they will purposefully do bad or lose, or switch up and start insulting the girl.

Of course, there are some men who will attempt at “protecting” or “defending” the girl by pointing out the other persons behavior. However when they do, some may portray them as a “sissy”, a “pussy” or a “pick-me”, for attempting to do so, therefore resulting in him also getting made fun of. Sadly, this discourages people to speak up.

A common stereotype being that women are not good a video games, men will often get frustrated when finding out they have a girl on their team, in fear of losing the game. Resulting in them leaving or in just being super negative/rude the whole game. A prime example that can display this type of behavior is a Valorant streamer named JasonR. In march of 2022, he was put in game lobby, to which he had asked a question, where a girl had replied. He then pretended that his game “crashed”. It was a big controversy as he tried to lie about it, but there being multiple instances where this had happened.

One of the few moments where JasonR displayed toxic masculinity.

Blog 2: Toxicity within masculinity.

Gender roles have almost always been a thing. In past, men would almost always have more power and rights than women, for example; it wasn’t until 1918 that women in Canada had the rights to vote, of course with certain restrictions. As time went on, we, as a society, have realized how wrong it was to treat women in this manner, however, in certain countries, this ideology of men being “better”, and the superior gender is still present. Though still present in a minority of areas, toxic masculinity is still taught to young men and boys, causing a lot of wrongful behaviors affection those around them, whether it be of the same gender or the opposite.

I’m sure you’ve heard it a few times, but “gay” has often been used as an insult between friends, more often between guys. When an action is in the slightest way possibly feminine, they would point it out calling one another gay. In Michael S. Kimmel’s “Masculinity as Homophobia”, we read about the struggles men and young boys must go through to not be seen as gay, even though they aren’t. Saying “The fear of being seen as a sissy dominates the cultural definitions of manhood.” Unfortunately, Kimmel’s statement is still true to the real world. Boys are so scared of being seen as gay, that it turns into homophobia. From working out to have a strong figure; to strong actions to prove their manliness, the number of things they will do to prove their manhood is scary. I’ve seen situations where a boy tried fighting a large sum of other boys to prove his masculinity or even committing crimes, for that same reason. To prevent any signs of femininity, men act carefully and never show any vulnerability because that makes them weak. This generation of boys are still very intoxicated with this mentality of masculinity, making sure their every action is manly to prove their “superiority”.

Toxic masculinity is often seen as sexism; however, their ideology can also turn into racism. As displayed in the YouTube video watched in class: “Charlottesville: Race and Terror”, this type of toxic masculinity, I feel, is a lot less talked about, even though it is very dangerous to not only women, but men as well. The protest, led by a white supremacist male, wanting to keep the Robert E. Lee statue up in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned into an absolute chaos when people started protesting him. Christopher Cantwell, the leader to this protest, strongly believes that the immigrants ruin their country. Screaming racial slurs and chanting horrid things, while still believing that he is completely right. That day led to casualties on the other party and a lot of injuries as a car drove straight into the crowd of people. However, Cantwell saw no issue with it, saying that they deserved it or provoked it. His unbelievably tragic way of thinking really shows you how toxic his “manliness” is. In conclusion, men have installed incredibly horrible homophobic and sometimes racist ideas into their masculine way of thinking. Things such as behaving in a certain manner or thinking a certain way. It’s heartbreaking but still very present as people are still teaching their kids to think this way. We need to work together and put an end to this

Blog 1: The impact of masculinity on men.

Having chosen to be in this course means I have interest in learning the difficulties and the differences men and women go through. The expectations, the needs, the wants, and the stereotypes vary between both genders. After having watched the short film “Invincible” and reading “Guys Club” I have seen multiple diverse ways masculinity can be portrayed through actions and words.

“Guys Club” by Gomez, Carlos Andres, has opened my eyes beyond what I have known. Throughout my time reading this chapter, I have sympathized and acknowledged these difficulties and hardships. Within the first few pages, we read about Carlos’s devastating experience, where he had asked his aunt to paint his fingernails after seeing his sisters getting hers done. His aunt refuses at first, saying it was something for “girls only”, but he insisted, and she gave in, telling him “I guess you’ll have to learn the hard way.”. Carlos, being a young boy, saw no problem with this, he was simply expressing himself and doing what any child likes doing, exploring, being curious and trying new things. When his aunt and sister were done, he excitedly ran to the soccer court to play with the other kids, but the fun was abruptly interrupted when one of the big boys trapped the ball and grabbed his hand, calling him a “faggot” and denying his right to play with them for having his nails done. Carlos got laughed at, pointed at, and made fun of. He was only six years old. This part of the chapter really got me. I could not help but feel sad for Carlos. Although, many questions came into my head; how old were the bigger kids? Who taught them such vulgar words? Why were they taught to treat people that way? Nevertheless, it saddens me that because he is a boy, he is stripped from the fun of getting his nails done, or getting pretty, because if he does, he would be considered a “faggot” and not “normal”.

In the short film “Invincible” by Vincent René-Lortie, we watch Marc, the main character of the story, go through different hardships and experiences you would have never thought about before. In one scene, we see Marc in his classroom, writing in his book. Classmates being asked to read what they had written down, then came Marc’s turn. He stayed silent, and the teacher offered to read it out for him. The words, the meaning behind them and the power in them are so strong. It was such an obvious cry for help. “Je crie dans un monde qui ne peut m’écouter.” Translates to; “I scream in a world where no one can listen to me.”. I think this is a perfect sentence to talk about how men don’t feel comfortable with expressing their emotions and talk about how it is socially looked down upon when men are expressive and vulnerable. Marc was clearly struggling and in need of mental help, however, even after reading those words, he was dismissed, and everyone kept going on with their day. No one took a moment to talk to him and ask if he was doing alright, or asked if anything was bothering him. This moment really hurt my heart and made me think. I can’t help but wonder how many boys and men go through this. Ones who try speaking up about their struggles but get dismissed, and ones who choose to repress their emotions and deal with it themselves. How is it acceptable to let these people struggle, simply because of social standards, expectations and stereotypes? It doesn’t make sense, yet it’s still the truth in the world we live in.

Although I’ve talked a lot about how toxic masculinity can get, throughout our modern days it has improved greatly and is starting to be more and more realistic. More and more men are open to expressing themselves, although it can still be a sensitive subject for some. I think what we need to do, as a society, is to accept that men are human beings and have their needs. We need to understand that men should also get pampered, loved and cherished just as much as women. We need to leave these gender roles in the past and move onto what should be equality.