Modern Manhood

Remember in Episode 55 where we spoke to Boys Group and Men’s Group facilitator Jermal Alleyne? Remember when I said that we’re going to come back to him to talk about masculinity, well here we are. The reason why I wanted to split this into two and make sure we get Jermal’s takes on masculinity right now is because he mentions a lot of key advice and ideas that have not been mentioned a whole lot lately, mainly about community and how men in general need to not only critique what goes around them (in a respectful way), but have the openness to be wrong. Critiquing is not a bad thing when done in an open manner, arguing for argument’s sake…well that’s a different story. We might get stuck. You know what, let’s hear Jermal speak to this.

You can also find anything to do with NextGenMen at nextgenmen.ca  including Modern Manhood. Also if you’re in Calgary or Toronto, check out Wolf Pack

I was honored to talk about this and the research that Chataleine’s Editor at Large’s Rachel Giese has done to write the book “Boys: What It Means to Become A Man.” She has taken the time to look at what is going on in Canada in regards to the toxic forms of traditional western masculinity, interested in groups like WiseGuyz down in Calgary, and speakers like once and future guest Jeff Perera. We speak about her motivations for the books, what surprised her the most, complicity and the danger of “otherisms” in regards to #MeToo, and her call not only to the isolation of some men, but also to step back and think of the victims of violence.

You can find the men’s survey that Chataleine did here.

If you want to see what Wolf Pack is about, they are making it happen in Calgary and in Toronto. Click the links to get your tickets.

YESSPAINTING can be found here

For today’s guest, from the great city of Toronto, we have Jermal Alleyne. A leader of youth groups and men’s groups in two different capacities, one through Next Gen Men and one through the John Howard Society.

This interview was fascinating to me because it’s very close to what I do here in Edmonton, and our approaches are similar but at the same time it’s great to hear it said out loud. We go through the differences of teaching the two, we also touch a bit about Jermal’s father, and his journey to working anti-violence work.

You’ll hear part two of my conversation with Jermal on episode 57. But on the next Modern Manhood, we’re going to talk to Rachel Giese, the editor at large for Chatelaine about her new book all about Canadian masculinity.

If you remember last week, we spoke to performance coach David Ogle. I wanted to splice his conversation in two just because I feel, just like his company’s namesake, it’s good in doses. In the first half we talked about what he thought about being a man in a place that was “made for women,” and in this half I wanted to tease out some theories with him, one specifically about the roles of coaches as a form of therapy for men. David also tells us about his life changing moment, a moment he calls his “ok we’re turning a corner here” moment. And he also quotes some Disney to give us his end of show advice. Stick around for it.

Our new sponsor is YESSPAINTING.COM which Youth Empowerment and Support Services are helping kids work and help out in the community

I wrote this piece for my little daily blog on Medium about life coaches and how I found them to be, kind of disingenuous. You know, giving you advice on what’s going on, and pretending to be nice so they can get money from you.  But I was surprised that I was asked to speak to David Ogle, who is a performance coach from Dose Coaching. He mentioned that he was curious about masculinity and how it shapes us, and was super keen to explore this with me. So I checked him out, and what I found was fascinating. We chatted for a while, and so for the sake of me not cutting his story, I’m going to split this into two parts. So this is part 1 with my conversation with David Ogle.

Dose Coaching and it’s Blog can be found here, also you should subscribe to their newsletter

You can find the PodSummit info here

Led by Samantha Nzessi and Remoy Philip the first, MASKulinity podcast is a conversation about their lives and how masculinity was shaping it, from the female side and from the internal male side. I had a chance to talk to both Samantha and Remoy about the genesis of their show, the way masculinity is performed in their lives, and the work of media around our premises.

Samantha and Remoy, both from Brooklyn, New York are in the middle of their second season, and they started off with a bang, bringing up scholar and savant Michael Kimmel from the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities from Stony Brook University. You can also check out Remoy’s blog here to find out about his interviews that I mention on the show

• Podsummit is coming to Edmonton on May 5th, you can get your tickets here at podsummit.com
• Edmonton Community Foundation’s Well Endowed Podcast is about International Women’s Day, which you can listen to here.

Gianmarco Visconti is a feminist gay young Muslim poet who is one of the host and producers of the feminist talk radio Adament Eve. And I asked him from a recommendation to come to Modern Manhood to talk about his stories of his wrestling identity of being Muslim, to his life as a gay man, and how his name represents a small mask but something that he has embraced. Listening back to this episode, I kept coming back to this phrase of multiple identities, and how we can inhabit them, and also to think about what life is like for a gay Muslim, which in itself sounds like rebellion in a homophobic and islamophobic society.

If you want to check out Adament Eve, it’s airing on CJSR 88.5 in Edmonton on Fridays from 5:30pm to 6pm. If you want to go to see Doug Hoyer on March 17th, use the code APNROCKS to get 5 dollars off.