In the text “Masculinity as Homophobia”, the author, Micheal Kimmel explains that men are raised to fit into the very limited norms of masculinity. This masculinity is based on the fear of other men. We live in a society where men pay attention to every action they do, to make sure they do not act feminine in the slightest way. The biggest fear a man faces is being called a homosexual. Gays are still describe with stereotypes such as someone who acts feminine, dresses feminine, talks a certain way, etc. Therefore, being seen as feminine is the biggest fear men face. To make sure people do not portray them that way, men are forced to exaggerate masculinity norms. Therefore, they turn to violence. Manhood is based on having power – power over women and other men. This is where we can connect this article to the documentary on Trump. Trump was raised to always be the best, the most successful, the most powerful. This explains his use of verbal violence towards so many people; the only way he is able to show his power is by diminishing others. Sadly, American society is constructed to fail the majority of men. What I mean is only the smallest fraction of men will manage to obtain their goal of power. All the other men will feel “powerless”. However, they are not truly “powerless”. Compared to all other race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, these men are powerful. Why do they feel so powerless? Because the norms of masculinity are so unobtainable, that even men with a certain quantity of power, always want more. They do not realize their power compared to women, LGBTQ+, poorer individuals, etc. Men are fighting a competition between themselves and do not bother to think about every other individual who does not fit perfectly the norms of masculinity. In their fight there is always a winner and a loser, and that loser is a “sissy”, a “pussy”, a “faggot”, and the list goes on. Trump was raised to always win. He was taught to never show his weakness and failures. However, when Obama made fun of him at the conference, Trump felt humiliated for the first time in his life. As a consequence, Trump decided to run for presidency in spite of Obama – he had to win this battle. This situation really shows the immaturity of Trump, but also the immaturity of all men who are racing for this power. This need for power is extremely childish, and men will obtain it in childish ways. Men are raised to believe they will be powerful, but most of the time they will never feel the power they were described because it is so unrealistic. As a result, they feel frustrated, angry, but mostly humiliated. Without this power, they feel that they have failed their parents, their friends, their family, and themselves. Men are made believe that if they do not have power, then they are nothing. We must change this perception of masculinity.

Mathilde Caille

This research project concerning issues related to sexual violence and harassment allowed each group to create a campaign completely unique. My group, composed of Stephanie, Jorane and Carlo, focused on the issue of consent. We believe the concept of consent is not understood in society due to a lack of information about it. As a result, we decided to direct our campaign to young adolescents because we strongly believe that making youth understand the concept of consent at a young age will allow them to grow into adults who understand and respect this aspect in relationships. In order to reach out to our audience, we took the decision to use the platform of video games, focusing on games mostly played by adolescents. 

As a group we came to an agreement to create a video, which we will use as advertising in the game. The player will be offered a reward in exchange to watching the video. This is an incentive to encourage teens to watch the video and be rewarded for it, and therefore eventually encouraging them to watch it again. At first, we decided to have one big video, divided into three scenarios. However, after some discussion, we realized it would be more effective if we created three separate videos, and rewarded the player for each of the video. The videos will appear at different times during the game, preventing the player from being bored by watching the same long video multiple times. Having different scenarios will have a better chance of grabbing our audience’s attention. The principle idea of our videos is to present situations where consent is not respected. However, since we are targeting young adolescents, we are not directly illustrating situations of sexual relationships. Our goal is to just present the concept of consent. To keep the videos short and light hearted, we used animals. 

Before each video, the player is asked: “Do you consent to watch this video?” and is given the choice between “Yes” and “No”. This introduces the idea of consent before the videos even start. The first situation is consent in family relationships: A mom cat forces her son to kiss his grandfather before he leaves. This situations is seen in a numerous families, and society must change the norm about it. How can children understand that they have control over their own body if we force them from a young age to give affection against their will?The second video covers the aspect that verbal consent is not enough. In this situation, we reversed the role of the dominant perpetrator and the small victim. A sheep insists on wanting the Wolf to come to the mall with it. The Wolf agrees after the sheep continually asks him or her. However, at the mall, the Wolf does not seem to be enjoying himself/herself. This portrays a situation where it is important to look at physical and emotional consent – if the person doesn’t look like it is enjoying itself, it is important to understand that that person is not consenting. Finally, the last video portrays the idea of consent for every step. An older experienced rabbit invites a younger rabbit to go to a movie. Arriving at the cinema, the older rabbit insists on going to see a horror movie. However, the young rabbit does not feel comfortable seeing that. This scenario tries to illustrates situations where experienced people might want to do something the partner doesn’t feel comfortable to try. In these situations, it is important to have consent through every step of the way. Also, the choice of using two rabbits was to include the idea of same sex couples. After each video, a sentence is presented: “You were able to consent to watch this video. You have the right to say No in any situations.” We thought this would influence the player to always remember to ask for consent, just like we did or to remind the player he has the right to say no at any time.

Our campaign was inspired by the videos made by Concordia Sexual Assault Resource Centre watched in class. They used fruits to lighten up the subject, not determine sexes, make it more funny, and most importantly inform people on consent. This is exactly what we were trying to achieve with our animals. We did not need much research for our campaign because it was a video that needed a lot more of our imagination than any facts or information.

The creation of this campaign presented some difficulties such as missing a group member, disagreeing on certain points, and having to create scenarios that demanded a lot of imagination and creativity. However, we still managed to create an original project in a short period of time. I believe this campaign would be successful because it is a fun way of presenting the idea of consent. The fact that we reward the viewer makes the activity a positive experience and therefore makes the player more likely to remember it and share it. The use of animals makes the subject seem less intense and gives each adolescents a different way to analyze it. Our videos are short and relate to situations that happen often which gives it more chances of being successful. 

To finish off, I really loved being part of this project. I have learnt a lot of facts and information listening to other team’s presentations. This project really allowed me to participate for cause a cause that I am passionate about.  

Mathilde Caille

This is a very short but powerful video aimed a teenagers to denounce rape. At the end it is written “If you could see yourself, would you see rape?” I find this sentence extremely powerful and allows the viewer to reflect on it. This video is directed to young men to make them realize that they must stop and reconsider their actions before pursuing them because sometimes on the moment, they do not realize the impacts of them and wether they are right or wrong.

#DearDaddy is one of my all time favourite advert denouncing rape culture and toxic masculinity. Throughout the 5min video it is possible to see the many actions accepted in society that lead to rape and gender-based violence. For example, this video denounces the way we educate the boys in our society. Being accepting towards sexist jokes, calling girls whores, cunts, slut “just for fun” to impress other boys, or blaming girls for being wasted. This video is addressed to our fathers in society to ask to change the way we raise our boys. It denounces passive by standers who laugh at jokes. Jokes that lead to men who think it is ok to rape women because they were never told they were wrong. This video also portrays a violent relationship to help people understand how a women in this situations feels. This video is very touching and I find it portrays the problem in society very well. Being born a girl is the greatest dangers of all and we must change that. The video adresses itself directly to a certain group which makes it a lot more personal and effective.

Lastly, here are drawings done by @drawingofdogs on instagram. This artists creates memes on social justice themes, including rape culture. I find that it is a unique way of denouncing social injustices. He uses animals or objects which lightens up the mood. It is a short, funny, and very accurate way of illustrating rape culture.

Mathilde Caille

On the 4th of March 2019, David Garzon represented White Ribbon, an organization created after the Polytechnique massacre to educate men against gender-based violence. During the conference, David shared his personal experience with domestic violence, stating that his own family such as his mother and his grandmother experienced violence from their husbands at the time. This made the conference seem more personal and therefore more interesting. David’s goal was to bring awareness to the issue of toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity is defined by the exaggerated and unrealistic traits we attribute to masculinity. White Ribbon engages men and boys in the prevention of gender-based violence by promoting equity and transforming social norms. Most men in Ontario are generally supportive of gender equity. However, there is a significant gab between belief and behaviour. David shared statistics to show the important issue in society:

• Approximately every week a woman is killed by her current or former boyfriend or partner.
• Half of Canadian Women will experience some form of Gender-Based Violence
• 1\3 women will experience some form of sexual violence and it is 1/6 for men. 
• On any given night in Canada, 3,491 women and their 2 724 children sleep in shelters because it isn’t safe at home. 

These facts illustrate well the problem in society that we must find a solution to. Family, friends, colleagues, community resources, know about these violent behaviours,  but don’t do anything to stop them. White Ribbon association encourages witnesses to act and challenge these behaviour in order to reduce violence. 

Also, David presented an exercice they do during their conference with groups of men: the man box. This exercice consists of men defining elements that they consider as strong. Men usually define strength as: physically strong, emotionless, controlling, etc. Young Men who try to conform to the man box are much more likely to perpetrate bullying than their peers outside to the box. The impacts of these masculinity norms on women and queer people are usually discrimination (transphobia, homophobia, sexism), violence (physical, verbal, online), emotional labor (expectations, compensating lack of support networks). However, there are also many impacts on men and boys such as loneliness, poor social skills, more limited connection with loved ones, limited self-care, etc. Victims are often women or members of the LGBTQ+ community and the perpetrator are very often men. This is largely due to the way we raise our boys. Society must act to challenge these norms together. For example, next time instead of laughing at a sexist joke, tell the person you don’t think it is funny. This will allow the person to question his action, and prevent him from doing it again. We should start defining strength as: in control of self, empathy and compassion, mature, character, endurance, resilience, accountable, etc. This will not only help men to feel better about themselves, but it will also prevent gender-based violence. 

This conference was very interesting, and everyone should have to see it to spread the message and bring awareness to this issue. Here is a video created for White Ribbon Day in Australia:

Mathilde Caille

In the reading “Gender and Cultural Diversity in the Early Contact Period”, the author informs us on the place gender relations hold in the Aboriginal culture. In this text, we can see that gender relations vary within cultures. The Europeans that colonized Canada at first, had a very different view on the role of women than the Aboriginals did. 

In the Atlantic region, the Mi’kaq had a relatively egalitarian society. There was a division of labour between men and women, but each of the roles were complementary and essential. Major leaders were often men, but women’s opinions were valued and respected. For the Innu of the Northern Quebec, shamans could be either men or women. On another hand, Iroquois societies were matrilineal and matrilocal. Women had status of authorities and were the ones who chose the members of the Confederacy Council. They also exercised power in the household and were responsible for decision-making.  All these societies are based on cooperation and gave important tasks to both genders. “The work of both men and women was seen as essential for the survival of the group” (19). Aboriginal societies were also very open to same-sex relationship or marriage. Two-spirit people could marry or have sexual relationship with either sex. These people had often a special social and cultural role such as heelers, seers, or bearers of oral tradition. In the Blackfoot, it was current for men to have multiple wives. This allowed women to share the work and resources of the household. All these examples, show the culture’s open-mindedness, the equity between men and women, and the respect towards women. 

On the contrary, the European societies are based on a patriarcal system. When they arrived in Canada., Europeans tried to replicate the social and cultural system of their homeland. Marriages were between a man and woman only, and emphasized the role of power the husband held over his wife and children. Women worked hard, but were never acknowledge for their efforts. Even women of high ranks that took care of social events and charities were perceived as subordinate to men. Europeans saw Aboriginal women as hyper-sexual and were shocked by the sexual autonomy in the communities. This clashed with the patriarchal, monogamy and masculine self-control of the Europeans’ culture. 

During the conference on Wednesday March 6th, Diane Labelle did not focus enormously on gender. However, she presented how the educational system works in Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal societies have a unique way of educating their youth. For them, learning is an individualized life long process. Education is not a “one size fits all”. Each individual who comes in at the center has its own schedule due to their needs and wants. Learning needs to be a transformative experience, and therefore you need to develop your own sense of identity. They value personal experience and believe that education from an indigenous perspective does not schedule things because you do not know the time it will take to learn something compared to someone else. You must learn at your own pace. Labelle believes that learning is a never ending process, and that education has to become more than just a diploma. I find that this conference allows us to see the open-open-mindedness of the Aboriginal education system.This community has a lot of great ideas to offer, and I truly believe that we should consider changing our society to be more like them. 

Mathilde Caille

Simon Veil is a french lawyer and politician who fought for women’s rights. She is born on the 13 of July 1927 and past away two years ago on the 30 of June 2017. In 1944, after graduating from her BAC, Simone is deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, she loses most of her family, only her and her siblings Madeleine and Denise were liberated in 1945.

As soon as she is liberated, Simone Jacob (her last name at the time), goes and study law and political science. There she will meet her future husband, Antoine Veil, with who she will have three sons. In 1952, her sister Madeleine passes away in a car accident, which will be a hard part of Simone Veil’s life to cope with since she loses the only person she could talk to. From 1946 to 1974 she held various positions through which she was able to further women’s rights. In 1956, she worked for the Ministry of Justice. While she worked at the ministry of Justice, Simone Veil improved women’s prison conditions and the treatment of incarcerated women. She also successfully achieved the right to dual parental control of family legal matters and adoptive rights for women. She will later become the second woman to be Minister of Health. She is known to have fought for the legalization of abortions. She will present a speech in front of an assembly mostly made of men, but will still manage to convince them to legalize abortion in 1975.

However, her speech will cause her to receive many aggressive comments towards her and her family. She also put in place new laws which facilitated the access to contraception, and expanded health coverage, monthly stipends for child care, maternity benefits, etc. In July 1979, she is elected first female president of the European parlement. There she will fight for men’s rights, but also create a commission for women’s rights.

Throughout her life, Veil receives many awards, such as the Charlemagne prize in 1981. Simone Veil is a role model in France, and will be the fifth woman in history to be buried au Panthéon with her husband in 2018. Today, after the uprise of anti-semite comments, France is considering giving traits of Simone Veil to Marianne, the symbol of France.

Mathilde Caille

“On a typical day in the United States, 85 percent of women do housework, cooking, house maintenance, or care work related to health or finances, compared with 67 percent of men.” (67)

Women face many disadvantages in both the household and the workplace. Through her text, Chemaly talks about many of those unfavourable circumstances. Three particularly interested me. The first one is the “caregiver syndrome”, which is the name given to the stress that women experience throughout their lives daily. The author states that this syndrome is actually a “debt stress”. As contradicting to our gender ideals this can be, caring is expensive. Therefore, since money is the biggest cause of stress, caring is one of the biggest cause of stress for women. The responsibility that women hold for the caring of their family prevents all chances for financial stability or leadership they may won’t to develop. Today in the United States, it is still possible to notice a shocking gender segregation in the job sector. The top job for women, just like in the 1950, is an administrative assistant/secretary, followed by teaching and nursing which are considered “maternal” jobs. Additionally, women “compose the majority of low-wage service workers” (82). These professions are emotionally demanding and have the highest rates of burnouts. A study was conducted to show the close relationship between burnouts and suppressed anger. Teachers and nurses are angry at their working conditions that make them feel “powerless”, “blamed, “unrespected” (83), and the list goes on. The sectors in which women are the most present requires the worker to constantly be “cheerful, accommodating, flexible, and patient” (83), characteristics that are considered being “maternal”. In consequence, these requirements “require constant suppression of negative emotions” (83) leading to the increase of stress and therefore eventually burnouts.

Moreover, the emotional labour women are held responsible for is an enormous disadvantaged. We are responsible not only for managing our emotions, but also the feelings of others. The example Chemaly uses, and that I found very convincing, is the emotional responsibility women have for men’s sexual pleasures. 80 percent of women fake an orgasm during sex to protect their partner’s ego, feelings and to contribute to their self-esteem. A study in 2018 showed that women in heterosexual relationship have less orgasms than any other sexual demographic. This proves the prioritization of male pleasure during intercourse. In consequence, we ignore women’s needs or pain they might be feeling. This eventually leads to how women respond to rape: laughing off sexual assaults to not hurt the assaulter’s feelings.  Therefore, the prioritization of male’s sexual pleasures and the responsibility women have emotionally to respond to these needs is a big factor of rape culture.

Lastly, Chemily talked about the ideas of gender responsibility appear already at a very young age. Girls tend to do the laundry, vacuuming, taking care of siblings, and boys do the “masculine” jobs such as take out the trash, wash cars, mow lawn, etc. Not only are the chores separated according to gender, but boys are 10 percent more likely to be paid to do the tasks than girls. We can also see these traditional ideas when it comes to the choice of toys. What are considered “feminine” toys are the unpaid care work such as taking care of a doll, or cooking. However, boys play with toys that are associated with competition, money, or paid jobs. Society makes it seem as if boys are not naturally interested in caring however according to Kamala London and Isabelle Cherney’s research, boys between the age of five and thirteen chose “feminine” or “masculine” toys equally if left alone. Funny enough, when the subject thought it was being watch, this behaviour changed. I truly believe that this is proof that society pressures young boys to be something that they do not necessarily want to be. 

In order to lessen the burden placed on women, society must firstly change the way we raise and educate our children. We need to change the norms we impose on children, and separate equally household chores. Educating children to know that women and men should have the same emotional labour will allow in the future to have adults that equally share household chores. Additionally, we should encourage both men and women to go into certain job sectors in order to make gender statistics more equal.

Mathilde Caille

The author explains that men and women are a lot more similar than society makes us believe. Society stresses the idea that gender is based on mean differences. However, gender does not limit itself to our different biological characteristics. These mean differences are the average score observed for men and women. Men are identified as strong, aggressive, who express their power, and women are viewed as weaker, emotional, who dedicate their life to pleasing men. These observations do not show the bigger picture, and illustrate only a certain type of masculinity and femininity. In fact, men and women have a lot more in common than things that set them apart.

Gender is a human created concept. It is “the meaning that are attached to those differences within a culture” (2). Therefore, gender varies within a geographical location, values attached to a society, and is dependant upon the period of time. Masculinity and femininity are a very absurd concept that is not fix. For example, in North America, masculinity is viewed as being strong and powerful, but in some other countries it is seen as being responsible emotionally, and participating in civic duties.  It is these ideas of masculinity and femininity that shape men and women in society. If it wasn’t for gender, and if the two sex were raised exactly the same way, men and women would be a lot more similar. It is through the process of socialization that we grow to be different. We are raised to fit the behaviours, traits and attitudes our culture defines as masculine or feminine. We are all born the same, but are raised to be different. This division is the consequence of inequality: as the author states, “gender difference is the product of gender inequality, and not the other way around” (4). When having two different things, it automatically leads to one being more powerful. This is why many sociologist believe that gender inequality is inevitable. We would have to eliminate the concept of gender completely in order to make these inequalities disappear. Will gender eventually completely disappear? Nobody knows. 

Society “cling[s] to the notion of gender differences so tenaciously” (13), because this is the ideas that we have grown up with for a long time. It is human nature to be scared of change, and to cling to the comfort of security. The people benefiting from these inequalities, typically white men, do not want to lose the power that they possess. Why give up something that is so great? For the people that are affected negatively by these inequalities, it demands great courage to question an idea that has been present in society for a long period of time. Especially that the feminist movement is victim of many negative stereotypes, which scares people away from implicating themselves in it. I truly believe that we cling to this notion due to the fear of change. However, the feminist movement is gradually taking more place in society, and I have hope that gender will eventually disappear. For that to happen, we have to change the norms we impose in society such as the way we raise the future generations. There should be no difference between raising a boy or a girl, they should have all the same choices, the same education, the same amount of affection, etc. This will lead to the understanding that men and women are exactly the same, a concept that is still hard to understand in society today. 

Mathilde Caille

The conference “Against Empathy” was held by the Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom. Paul Bloom is an award winning teacher and researcher, who wrote his book: “Against Empathy”. As the title foreshadows, Paul Bloom has a unique perspective on empathy. Paul started his talk by defining empathy. Most people define it as concern, compassion, kindness, love, morality or by the capacity to judge what others are thinking and feeling. The Vanier graduate, believes, as Adam Smith explains it in his book, that empathy is the action of putting ourselves in other people’s shoes. A good example Bloom used is when we watch someone being vaccinated, we feel the pain of the patient, as you can see on the image bellow: 

Empathy can be used for right or wrong. Simon Baron-Cohen states that the lack of empathy is the cause of evil. Paul does not believe this is true. Having empathy can lead as much to positive consequences to negative ones. Professor Bloom compares empathy to a spotlight, having a very narrow focus. This is the cause to the bias of numeracy. The example that was used during the conference is how we feel when we hear about a massive deadly earthquake in another country: the numbers become a statistic. We do not feel more sadness if the numbers double or triple, it remains just “a big number”. However, if we are shared the personal story of one person dying, people are affected a lot more. This is why charities share personal stories and not numbers. We are insensitive to numbers. This is why Paul Bloomer believes that putting yourself in other peoples shoes makes you bias to numbers. Empathy creates many other biases such as gender, race, class etc. During the conference, Paul shared many stereotypes that concern empathy. Nevertheless, one particularly interested me: without empathy there would be no motivation to do good. This is crazy! There are many reason people do the right thing: for religious reasons, to save their reputation, or because they care. Paul insisted on the fact that caring and empathy is not the same thing, and I definitely agree. You can be empathic and not feel any compassion or concern. Bloom is not completely against empathy. He believes it can be a good thing, but for him, empathy is a terrible moral guide. 

Mathilde Caille

In my opinion, a feminist is defined by what a person fights and stands for. It is not based on a certain type of physique or a unique idea. Feminist all fight for different ideas and can be any type of person. Therefore, my definition of a feminist is similar to the two authors and remains the same before and after the readings. Valenti and Hook both insist on the fact that feminist are not anti-men. In fact, they both argue that feminism fights for equal rights for women without being a threat to men’s rights. They both mention that anyone can be a feminist. They support this mouvement, because they believe that gender equality is still a very current problem, even though stereotypes try and convince us otherwise. 

In Hook’s article, the author insists more on the argument that feminism isn’t just about women having more rights, it is a mouvement that wishes to end completely patriarchy and sexism. Therefore, Hook wishes more than just equality of genders, she wants to change our society. Towards the end of her article, Hook mentions the place of race in feminism. She believes that women will never be completely equal, if we do not all stand together. Indeed, she says that feminism is hidden behind the battle of class and race. She insists on the fact that it is not only men, but also women, that support sexist thinking and behaviours. By putting down and exploiting women of colour, white women help the continuity of sexist behaviours. Women must all stand together to demolish our patriarchal society. Another cause of this problem is the media: putting the attention on the actions of white feminist and leaving behind the other feminist of colour. In Hook’s article, I really enjoyed her reasoning that feminism today is a new form of the mouvement, and that we must start this “revolution” again. The previous feminist mouvement, was about having more economical rights for white privileged women. Considering the racial discrimination at the time, rights for women of colour was definitely not a priority. Therefore, Hook explains that white men didn’t mind supporting these ideas because it allowed them to maintain white supremacy. The new generations of feminist are looking for equality in every way possible, at home, at work or in the streets; no matter your identity in order to end patriarchy completely.

By doing a little bit of research on both authors I was able to find out a bit about each of them. Valenti focuses a lot on sharing her feminist thoughts with younger generations. This explains her choice of writing and the reason behind choosing to talk about the common stereotype: feminism is “so last week”. Writing about this usual stereotype, allows younger generations to realize that it is not to late to implicate themselves in this mouvement. Jessica’s article exposes the stereotypes about feminism, in order to tell the truth about this mouvement. 

On another hand, Hook focuses on the factors that create and sustain oppression, which are capitalism, gender and race. She argues that men are not the only the problem of gender inequality, but it is more our whole societies fault.