Modern Manhood

Today on Cold Takes, Veronika and I talk about the Joe Biden sexual assault allegations, and the problem of partisanship within the #MeToo movement. As well, we will talk about the crappy neoliberal history of social work.

Cold Takes: Joe Biden/Tara Reade and The History of Social Work – Modern Manhood: The Podcast

Today on Cold Takes, Veronika and I talk about the Joe Biden sexual assault allegations, and the problem of partisanship within the #MeToo movement. As well, we will talk about the crappy neoliberal history of social work.  

1. Cold Takes: Joe Biden/Tara Reade and The History of Social Work 01:20:49
2. "Hockey has a Problem" – Hockey's history with Racism and Misogyny 39:53
3. "There's no such thing as Positive Masculinity" Intro to Multiple Masculinities 41:58
4. Cold Takes – Gender and COVID-19, plus discussing 'The Platform' 01:23:34
5. "Aging Men" w/ the men from Men's Shed 38:37

If you look back at the 2019-2020 hockey season, it should be really eye opening to anyone who considers themselves a hockey fan. First came the misdemeanor charge for Auston Matthews, who intimidated a female security guard. Then came the firing of Mike Babcock and then the revelation of this toxic intimidating mind games towards his younger players, then came the revelations that Flames head coach Bill Peters used racist language towards a player of color, Akim Aliu. He was also fired from his job. Then came the firing of long time broadcaster Don Cherry after his xenophobic comments. Then came the racist zoombombing of black hockey player K’andre Miller. And now the Leipsic incidents. 

All of these incidents can be looked as isolated, in the moment, and not indicative of what the “culture” is like. And many have chosen to look at it that way, unfortunately. Another way to see this is the symptom of the culture that hockey, and dominant sports fandom creates. The toxic, racist, misogynistic culture that continues today, behind the scenes. 

Ask people to define what Positive masculinity is? Well, you’ll get a variety of answers, from being virtuous to being self-reliant, but not too self-reliant; being emotionally open, being a good father, or being a good partner.

It gets confusing, especially if we’re looking for examples! There’s a lot! But I get why we as men who really want to relieve ourselves from toxic masculinity want to look for what is positive masculinity. We want to be better, we want to be the opposite of toxic. At the same time, we get stuck with the definition. I believe there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason why we turn ourselves in knots.

I’m here to tell you that there isn’t any labels for positive masculinity.

Links:

• Raewyn Connell: http://www.raewynconnell.net/p/masculinities_20.html
• Men’s Lib Discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/cvau9g/lets_talk_about_positive_masculinity/
• New Masculinity Same as Old Masculinity: https://medium.com/the-establishment/meet-the-new-masculinity-same-as-the-old-masculinity-25dc5a65c7df
• Dr NerdLove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqXhUwNYnYQ

CW: Talk about Suicide

On today’s edition of Cold Takes, Veronika and I talk about the economic impacts for men and women in regards to COVID-19 and how it aligns with the genders. As well we went on a deep dive on the movie ‘The Platform’ (get it).

Articles discussed:

• The Platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlfooqeZcdY
• Gender and The Economy: https://www.gendereconomy.org/primer-on-the-gendered-impacts-of-covid-19/
• Gender Based Violence Stats – https://canadianwomen.org/blog/covid-19-pandemic-gender-based-violence/
• Hasan Minhaj and Anand Giridharadas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS9CFBlLOcg

COVID-19 affects the aging population at a greater risk than it does anyone else. Self-isolation we hear time and time again is not so much for us not to get the virus, but it’s so we don’t transmit it to the aging population who are at a higher risk to die. So for this Modern Manhood, you will hear from three aging males tell their stories of their life and the struggles they may face before we even knew about the coronavirus.

Articles:

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/3/27/21195762/coronavirus-older-people-quarantine-loneliness-health

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21173938/coronavirus-covid-19-social-distancing-elderly-epidemic-isolation-quarantine

In this episode of Modern Manhood, we’re going to start something new and hopefully something continous. A way of reacting to the news cycle and having some fluid conversations with someone who is not only a good friend, someone who came up in the volunteer space around gender about the same time. Introducing “Cold Takes” a space to talk about articles and everyday life with my co-host Veronika Ilich, coordinator for Next Gen Men.

In this episode, we talk about BBC report about worldwide UN gender studies. And another report where it showed mothers being more unpleasant about little boy’s emotions than fathers.

Articles:

•  Gender study finds 90% of people are biased against women – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51751915
• Boys don’t cry’: Study suggests mothers, not fathers, show gender bias towards sons –https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/boys-don-t-cry-study-suggests-mothers-not-fathers-show-gender-bias-towards-sons-1.4693208
• Equity Leaders –http://www.equityleaders.org/
• Merby’s – https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/merb-ys-calendar-fundraiser-1.5417235

For the 100th episode of Modern Manhood, I want to think about the future. I asked people from the r/MensLib and Next Gen Men community to send me recordings of what they think the future of masculinity would be like. And you will hear my thoughts on the future of politics and culture in regard to gender. As well as ponder about the end of gender.

Everyday Sociology article: https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2018/06/the-future-of-gender.html

MM100 Party!: https://www.facebook.com/events/614647642701514/

Cleo Stiller is the writer of Modern Manhood: Conversations about the Complicated World of Bring a Good Man Today, and we had an awesome chat about the book Modern Manhood, (obviously our values align here) and where the conversation about some of these tough issues around gender begin, and where we can go.

As well, there is a SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

You can find Cleo at cleostiller.net

(CW: Sexual Assault)

I know of Kobe Bryant. I know the titles, I know the 81 points, I know when he wanted to be called Black Mamba like in Kill Bill, I know the commercials, I have even said “Kobe!” when I shoot paper basketballs at garbage cans. I also know about the rape case, I know about Denver, I know about the trial, and I know about the arrest.

What is appropriate to say at these times? And why can’t we say the full story, the full complexity of humanity?

Think Progress Piece: https://thinkprogress.org/the-legacy-of-the-kobe-bryant-rape-case-6a42f159be7b/

Jessica Valenti: https://gen.medium.com/why-do-mens-legacies-matter-more-than-women-s-safety-b832c43735e9

Today, we speak to writer Barrett Swanson, who attended an EVRYMAN men’s retreat and wrote about it for Harper’s for a piece titled “Men at Work”. He will tell us through his eyes, what some of the red flags, emotionally, physical, and sociological groups like EVRYMAN can be.

You can find Barrett at: https://www.barrettswanson.com/

Men At Work you can read here: https://modernmanhoodpodcast.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/c9738-swanson11-01-19.pdf