Blog 4: Perception of gender in Indigenous community vs European

INTRODUCTION:

Throughout history, there have been many and still are various perceptions of gender. We can observe how different that concept is across different cultures by exploring Keough and Campbell’s chapter “Gender and Cultural Diversity in the Early Contact Period,” the documentary Trans in Trumpland: Idaho, and the presentation by Indigiqueer artist Glenn Gear. Keough and Campbell’s chapter provides historical information on gender evolution, the documentary examines the impact that new laws have on the trans community and the presentation is a representation of the queer indigenous society. All of these works have reflected upon the Indigenous gender diversity and the aspect of Europeans newcomers. The Indigenous people and the Europeans have different stands on gender contrast. It is evident that Aboriginal cultures embraced the variation of genders meanwhile, the Europeans had strict gender roles and were discriminatory toward people who did not fit in it. In this blog post, I will be comparing the contrast between the Indigenous Peoples and the European Colonists view on genders and provide the historical aspects.

INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE ON GENDER:

Aboriginal people embraced and recognized gender identities other than the “traditional” ones. Before the arrival of the Europeans, Indigenous community thought highly of the diverse genders and held value for them. The two-spirit tradition is a good representation of the meaning it had on Aboriginal people. A two-spirit person is when masculinity and femininity is in one body. “Two-spirit traditions were an important and valued part of many indigenous sex-gender-sexuality systems” (Campbell and Keough 20). The ceremonial roles that two-spirit people were responsible for, were very important performances. In “Trans in Trumpland: Idaho”, they said that in the most traditional ways in the Sun Dance, you should always have a two-spirit person and that when the Sun dance comes, the two-spirit person is the one that picks the centre cottonwood lodge pole (Trans in Trumpland: Idaho; 13:09). Those individuals were seen as people who possessed spiritual abilities with their capability to express feminine and masculine energy and that they carried a gift to balance the community. Aboriginal societies are open to embrace and accept the different gender expressions, it was well illustrated in the documentary where Shane Ortega shared that one day, after his cousin came back from a dance, eight year old Joe Angelo wanted to wear a skirt and explained how his uncle did not oppose the idea (Trans in Trumpland:Idaho; 4:07). This observation helps us understand the positive views on gender by Indigenous people and also reflect about how different the reaction would be if it happened in a western community, since they are not given the freedom of gender expression and follow strict gender norms.

EUROPEANS HISTORICAL VIEW ON GENDER:

Europeans held rigid gender norms due to their patriarchal social structure. They had homophobic views and had a strong stance on masculinity. Through gender, Europeans newcomers tried to create power relations between groups. “European observers referred to two-spirit individuals as berdaches – a derogatory term describing what they saw as unmanly softness and passive homosexuality among “pretty” Aboriginal men.” (Campbell and Keough 19). They were taken aback by the power that indigenous women had within their family because they were raised in patriarchal communities, where only men have authority. European gender norms impacted their interaction with the Indigenous people and it led to cultural changes and conflicts. “Deeply concerned by the men’s lack of control over women’s sexuality and work, the Jesuits promoted a more hierarchical model of gender relations based on monogamous marriage, in which obedient wives would be under firm patriarchal control, descent would be traced through the male line, and fathers could be confident that they had sired their heirs” (Campbell and Keough 26). The Jesuit’s concern over the power dynamics within indigenous community led them to impose their ideology to Aboriginal people, which completely goes against Indigenous traditions. Settler-colonialists brought their patriarchal gender roles to try to convince aboriginal men that they should be more dominant than the women in the society. European colonisation had long-term effects over the Indigenous gender diversity. In his presentation at Vanier College, Glenn Gear, an Indigiqueer artist, expressed how he was never in contact with his Inuit culture and how he tried to explore more of it through his artistic practices related to the indigenous culture. He brings back the communities together through his art and explores many themes about the historical Indigenous cultures. Indigenous populations lost their various gender identities that were suppressed by the Settler-colonialists and erased their matrilineal households with the patriarchal system.

CONCLUSION:

To conclude, many Aboriginal communities had inclusive sex-gender systems which they embraced and included into their societies. Meanwhile, Europeans discriminated against anyone that differed to their rigid gender norms and European colonisation led to cultural changes within Aboriginal communities. By embracing the historical Aboriginal perspectives of gender, it could help to reduce discrimination and hate toward diversity. It would be a great support toward gender diversity in our society, if we start by recognizing the different gender identities and promote gender expression. 

Work cited: 

Glenn Gear, presenter. 29 Apr. 2024, Montreal, Vanier College.

Keough, Willeen G. and Lara Campbell “Gender and Cultural Diversity in the Early Contact Period.” Gender History: Canadian Perspectives, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 16–28 

Zosherafatain, Tony. “Trans in Trumpland: Idaho.” Kanopy, The Film Sales Company, http://www.kanopy.com/en/vaniercollege/video/11561418. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024. 

Blog 3: “Black Experience in Canada and US”

By Vasia Nagarajah

Desmond Cole’s memoir, “The Skin We’re In”, and Jordan Peele’s award-winning movie, “Get out”, makes us rethink about the experiences of black men and gives the audience an insight into their lives living in the US and Canada. Each work helps us gain an understanding about the societal experience of growing up as a black person in a white majority community. Through the movie and the book, we realize that places such as Canada and the US are not as revolutionized as we think they are. The racism in the society can be seen clearly, and it has not improved. Cole and Peele convey the relationship that black men have with Canadian and US society through the stereotypes, the complexities and explore the theme of systemic racism. This essay will examine the specific aspects of the black male experience portrayed in both works by discussing the experiences of black men in different countries and by analyzing the systemic racism.

In the film “Get out”, the protagonist, Chris, who visits his girlfriend’s white family home, gets himself into an uncomfortable situation. At first, Chris already knew that was he was about to get into was not going to be great, but the environment is what made it worse. He was at a garden party hosted by his girlfriend’s parents, and it was filled with white people. They kept invading his privacy, touching him, and making comments about Chris’s body. All those comments are just another form of racism, but they think that by saying things more obviously, it would make them seem like they are not trying to discriminate against him. In addition, Chris already suspected all the black people that are included in the white community because they do not act, speak, dress, or behave anything “like a black person”. Once he noticed it, he called his friend and explained it since he was so weirded out by how they acted like “white people”. Chris tries hard to fit in with the family by changing his mannerism and even the way he speaks when he is surrounded by the white community.

In the book “The skin we’re in”, the author describes the disadvantages of a black individual living in a white-dominated society. There is this quote that stuck to me from the book, which was: “You can’t ask people who have been oppressed their whole lives to forget that and to ignore the fact that it might be happening again” (Cole 2). This is a painful reminder that black people always need to have their guards up no matter where they are because that is how they were always taught to be. Another painful memory that Cole tells us is something that his black friend experienced. Cole uses an example of police brutality that John Samuels went through. John, who was simply enjoying his New Year’s Eve, got interrupted by the police, who later used force on him. John got charged with assault toward the police, which did not even happen, and this crime conviction has caused him serious damage from which he cannot even recover. By reading this vivid narration by Cole, he exposes the systemic racism ingrained in Canadian society.

In addition, we can also examine the portrayal of masculinity portrayed in “Fight Club” and how It relates to “The skin we’re in” and “Get out”. In “Fight Club”, the main character, who understands that people have expectations for men to be masculine, rejects these ideas. Just like in the book, Cole discusses the way black men are always stereotyped by society and in the movie, we see how the white community dehumanizes black men, in these works, they all reject the societal expectation of masculinity that they are surrounded by. Through the comparison, we get a better understanding of how masculinity is related to systemic racism.

To conclude, “The skin we’re in” and “Get out” provide the audience with the perspective of black men living in the US and Canada. Both works highlight the challenges that they have experienced while living in white dominated societies. After analyzing these works, I got a deeper understanding of the details of how systemic racism can be experienced similarly in different countries.

Bibliography

Cole, Desmond. “‘negro frolicks (January).’” The Skin We’re In, Doubleday Canada, 2020, pp. 1–17

Peele, Jordan, et al. Get Out. Universal Pictures, 2017.

Exploring Masculinity in “Mid 90’s”

Exploring Masculinity in “Mid 90’s”

By Vasia Nagarajah

In the context of popular culture, the portrayal of masculinity has undergone significant evolution which reflects on the change of the traditional norms and stereotypes that conserved the harmful ideals. The piece of work that is a great example of the exploration of masculinity is Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, “Mid 90’s”. The movie takes place in 1996 in Los Angeles. The film resonates about the complexities of masculinity through the perspective of young boys.

The protagonist of Mid 90’s is a thirteen-year-old boy names Stevie, portrayed by Sunny Suljic, who lives with his single mum and his abusive older brother Ian. Stevie finds friendship with the neighborhood’s skateboarding community. Through his interaction with the older boys in the community, the protagonist starts his journey to find his own identity, belonging and explore masculinity.

The aspect that stands out the most in the movie is the short portrayal of vulnerability. Unlike the traditional stereotypical thoughts about manhood, which usually associates with being tough, aggressive, dominant and suppress their emotions, in Mid 90’s, there are moments where we can observe each male character’s own insecurities and we also get to understand their emotional depth. For instance, Stevie keeps on trying to seek validation from the older boys in the friend group, which makes him act out and behave thoughtlessly but that leads him to understand that he should be more careful and makes him rethink on his own destructive behavior. There are also scenes that shows that Stevie deals with his emotions by hurting himself like when he felt guilty for stealing money, he decided to hurt himself and there was another scene where he chokes himself with the cords when he was overwhelmed with emotions. Through those moment of vulnerability, Stevie and the group of boys get to connect on a deeper level.

However, the film does acknowledge and include the portrayal of some stereotypes of masculinity. In “Mid 90’s”, we often see how the characters, named “Fuckshit”, Ian and other male characters, refer to physical violence to show that they are in control of the situations, and they often try to engage or provoke others into fights. All these confrontations can help them believe that violence is a form of masculinity. Furthermore, the film portrays the toxicity of “manhood” by showing us the way the young adolescents objectify women. Whenever there was any interaction between the protagonist’s friend group and women, they always talked about them as objects of desire. By analyzing the toxic masculinity that is shown in “Mid 90’s”, we can clearly understand how harmful stereotypes that the society forces on young men can have a negative impact on their perception.

To conclude, “Mid 90’s” is a movie that explores masculinity by challenging stereotypes and portraying the vulnerability of young men. This work shows us the complexity of the friendship between the group of adolescent boys and doesn’t hesitate to confront toxic behavior of masculinity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Rx6-GaSIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSrzctFgg7s

Blog 2: Challenging toxic narrative

By Vasia Nagarajah

Introduction to masculinity’s complexity

We often hear people talking about being a “real man” or the notion of manhood. These discussions often emerge since many people believe that being a man means that you must behave a certain way and they all have a restricted meaning to it. However, this idea of masculinity has been a negative influence in many people’s lives and has been a detrimental influence on many which can be seen through movements lead by men. Documentaries such as “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” and “Inside Incel” is a reminder to us all about the negative impact these beliefs about masculinity have affected people’s thoughts. Masculinity often leads to racism through power dynamics, sexism via gender roles and the objectification of women, homophobia through feminism and vulnerability, and finally, violence arising through suppression of emotions.

Unmasking the racism

Within the harmful ideologies of masculinity, racism is one of them. In “Charlottesvilles: Race and Terror”, this narrative is captured through white supremacist who believe that they are superior to anyone. They enforce racial hierarchies and are convinced that they are better than people of color and try to assert dominance over marginalized communities by violent act. The documentary shows us how toxic masculinity and racism is a combination that leads to harmful ideologies.

Intertwine masculinity to sexism

In both works, we can observe how sexism is intertwined with toxic masculinity. The ideology of incels were explored in the “Inside Incel” documentary and from what we observe, we can understand that they blame women for their lack of sexual fulfilment. Even in Kimmel’s essay, he talked about how the fear of femininity makes some men want to take control over women and have dominance. White supremacist ideologies from the Charlottesville documentary are not only racist but they are also sexist. Moreover, Will James talked about how toxic masculinity can be seen in educational settings. That toxicity being involved in a very important learning environment can have negative consequences on young men and will play a big role in promoting gender inequality. This can bring gender discrimination into classrooms and stay deeply ingrained into the child’s mind and, eventually into society. The internalized misogyny led to people acting on the sexist thoughts.

Violence and homophobia as a masculine trait

Through the documentaries “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” and “Inside Incel” we get to see extreme forms of masculinity. In his essay “Masculinity as Homophobia”, Michael Kimmel talked about how homophobia is the main aspect of cultural manhood. Throughout the essay, Kimmel talks about how traditional masculinity is all about being scared of being perceived as feminine or homosexual. They fear about not being tough, men seeing each other be emotional or that they might get emasculated by other men. This fear that they have blocks them from expressing the way they want to, and they often express it with aggressiveness. For instance, in Kimmel’s essay he said, “Violence is often the single most evident marker of manhood”. Being willing to fight is seen as masculine and violence is a very important part of “manhood”. In Charlottesville, we see how fear driven white supremacist resort to violence to show “dominance”. They even talked about the people who died by the violence as if they were nothing and as if fighting is their only way to show power. They believe that the society is belittling white men and to show that they decide to act out and show their “dominance” through violent act. Similarly, we can also observe in the other documentary, “Inside Incel”, that those involuntary celibate men think they can only show their anger of rejection through violence, which is why they went on to commit one of the largest mass killings in Canada. One major negative effect about masculinity is its link to violence.

Rethinking masculinity

To conclude, rethinking masculinity helps us examine the extreme behaviours of men that the society named masculinity. Kimmel’s essay, both documentaries and Will James insights gives us a better understanding behind the violence, racism, sexism, and homophobia that men express within the framework of masculinity. To end these harmful ideologies, educators like Will James should continue advocating for a different approach in the educational environment that would be helpful for the younger generation to grow up without the toxicity and encourage emotional intelligence.

Blog 1: Exploring Masculinity Through Youth

By Vasia Nagarajah

In the text “Guys Club: No Faggots; Bitches; or Pussies Allowed” by Carlos Andres Gomez and the short film “Invincible” by Vincent René-Lortie, the theme of masculinity is explored through the expectation that the society have toward both young men. Both works are about the young boys navigating in their world and about how they are struggling with masculinity internally, how they express it externally and how the society that they are surrounded by see them.

To start off, we acquire our concept of gender roles, behaviour, and norms from a very young age which the central character from the text never understood. For instance, in the very beginning of the story, Carlos was interested by his sister and aunt painting their nails and the topic was brushed off when he wanted to paint his nails too and the reason why was because it was “only for girls”. Later, the aunt finally gave in and said you will just have to learn it the hard way and painted his nails. When Carlos showed his friends his fingernails, they called him “faggot” and we can clearly see that Carlos was very confused about the whole situation. Internally, in both works, the main characters struggle with their own emotions and what they long for. While reading Gomez’s text, we can see how often the main character, Carlos, is conflicted with his personal values and the gender norms that are inflicted on men and women. In the short film “Invincible”, the central character struggles with his fear and insecurities. He wants to be stay strong for the people he cares for, and he finds comfort in water, we can see how he grapple with expressing himself whether it is with his family or at the centre de jeunesse.

Externally, in the film, we can see how “masculinity” is expressed through the main character’s interaction with the authority figures and his friends. The difference between the way they communicate to each other and the way they feel. For example, when Marc, the protagonist in the movie, came back to the youth center after spending the weekend with his family, he never answered and only nodded to the questions of Luc, the authority figure at the center. In addition, after Marc started the fire alarm, Luc talked to him about trust and the main character did tear up, but he was still hesitant about exposing himself to an adult. The protagonist’s contact with his surrounding can be described simply by “lack of communication” and his timidity to show vulnerability. The only time we get to see the part of him that’s vulnerable are when he is in his thoughts and when he interacts with his little sister. However, in the text, Carlos wanted to be open minded, appreciate everyone around him without judgment and be vulnerable but he realized how being close to another guy made him uncomfortable because of the internalized homophobia. I personally think that the part where Carlos accidently kissed his friend Brent while dreaming was very important to the story because Brent was not judging Carlos and tried to understand him, which probably made the protagonist trust his friend more and helped change the homophobia that was established since his childhood. In the film and the text, the central character struggle with showing vulnerability and above all, we can see how harmful this can be on a young person.

To conclude, “Guys Club: No Faggots, Bitches, or Pussies Allowed” and “Invincible” are about exploring masculinity through the eyes of young men and to focus on their internal feeling and the external pressure that they must face and how much the nature of masculinity impacts their development. These works give us different perspective on the nature of masculinity. Through each protagonist and their stories, we get to understand the complexity of masculinity, which inspire the audience to be more empathetic and try to relate to the narratives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gómez, Carlos Andrés “Guys Club: No Faggots, Bitches, or Pussies Allowed.” Man up: Cracking the Code of Modern Manhood, Gotham Books, 2012, pp. 65–83.

René-Lortie, Vincent, director. Invincible, TV5 Unis, 2022, https://www.tv5unis.ca/invincible.