So I was on the bus today, and some arsewipe had the nerve to come up and ask me out because he was “lonely” and “wanted someone to spend time with him”. Well, too bad, you imbecile! If you weren’t so annoying around women, maybe you would have some friends!!! I told him in no uncertain terms to buzz off and he actually looked sad. He thought he had the right to be SAD. He wasn’t the one being oppressed for his color or gender! He doesn’t know what it’s like! He’s a terrible person for being white andmale! Then he did something absolutely heinous.
HE
SAID
PLEASE
UP BUP BUP YOU CROSSED THE LINE
He asked me out TWICE.THAT’S SEXUAL ASSAULT.
So I had no choice but to call 911 on this creep, and get this? The dispatcher said they couldn’t do anything, and that this line was “for emergencies only”!
THIS BOILS MY BLOOD! This is just another example of how THE ENTIRE WORLD IS A MALE-DOMINATED POWER STRUCTURE, even to the point where the FEMALE dispatcher was an INTERNALIZED MISOGYNISTBEAST.
No one cares anything about women. I feel like a slave, being beaten to death because they aren’t picking the cotton fast enough. White men have had too much of an advantage in this world, to the point where sexual assault and harassment is brushed off as nothing. NOTHING. It has gotten to the point where I have to look down everywhere to avoid being spoken to by men. I hate all white men and wish they would be put to death. Life’s not fair for POC women!
Now I will argue that Batman’s motivations (protecting the innocent), level of preparedness, and the fact that he doesn’t kill people, put him miles above the current uniformed fascists charged with maintaining the status quo and protecting property. That being said I think this would be an innovative take on the Batman mythos, and have social commentary guaranteed to piss the wrong people (by which I mean the right people) right off. Personally I’d watch the shit out of that.
Image description: A still image from the 90’s TV sitcom Saved By The Bell. Jessie and Slater sit beside each other in a booth at a public restaurant. Slater is grinning at Jessie, squeezing her cheeks with his left hand. She is looking at him in annoyance. The caption reads, “The fear of being alone, or of being unloved, had caused women of all races to passively accept sexism and sexist oppression.”
When I was eight, my brother and I built a card house. He was obsessed with collecting baseball cards and had amassed thousands, taking up nearly every available corner of his childhood bedroom. After watching a particularly gripping episode of The Brady Bunch, in which Marsha and Greg settled a dispute by building a card house, we decided to stack the cards in our favor and build. Forty-eight hours later a seven-foot monstrosity emerged…and it was glorious.
I told this story to a group of friends as I ran a stack of paper coasters through my fingers. We were attending Oktoberfest 2017 in a rural university town in the Midwest. They collectively decided I should flex my childhood skills and construct a coaster card house. Supplies were in abundance and time was no constraint.
I began to construct. Four levels in, people around us began to take notice; a few snapped pictures. Six levels in, people began to stop, actively take pictures, and inquire as to my progress and motivation. Eight stories in, a small crowd emerged. Everyone remained cordial and polite. At this point, it became clear that I was too short to continue building. In solidarity, one of my friends stood on a chair to encourage the build. We built the last three levels together, atop chairs, in the middle of the convention center.
Where inquires had been friendly in the early stages of building, the mood soon turned. The moment chairs were used to facilitate the building process was the moment nearly everyone in attendance began to take notice. As the final tier went up, objects began flying at my head. Although women remained cordial throughout, a fraction of the men in the crowd began to become more and more aggressive. Whispers of “I bet you $50 that you can’t knock it down” or “I’ll give you $20 if you go knock it down” were heard throughout. A man chatted with my husband, criticizing the structural integrity of the house and offering insight as to how his house would be better…if he were the one building. Finally, a group of very aggressive men began circling like vultures. One man chucked empty plastic cups from a few tables away. The card house was complete for a total of 2-minutes before it fell. The life of the tower ended as such:
Man: “Would you be mad if someone knocked it down?”
Me: “I’m the one who built it so I’m the one who gets to knock it down.”
Man: “What? You’re going to knock it down?”
The man proceeded to punch the right side of the structure; a quarter of the house fell. Before he could strike again, I stretched out my arms knocking down the remainder. A small curtsey followed, as if to say thank you for watching my performance. There was a mixture of cheers and boos. Cheers, I imagine from those who sat in nearby tables watching my progress throughout the night. Boos, I imagine, from those who were denied the pleasure of knocking down the structure themselves.
As an academic, it is difficult to remove my everyday experiences from research analysis. Likewise, as a gender scholar the aggression displayed by these men was particularly alarming. In an era of #metoo, we often speak of toxic masculinity as enacting masculine expectations through dominance, and even violence. We see men in power, typically white men, abuse this very power to justify sexual advances and sexual assault. We even see men justify mass shootings and attacks based on their perceived subordination and the denial of their patriarchal rights.
Yet toxic masculinity also exits on a smaller scale, in their everyday social worlds. Hegemonic masculinity is a more apt description for this destructive behavior, rather than outright violent behavior, as hegemonic masculinity describes a system of cultural meanings that gives men power — it is embedded in everything from religious doctrines, to wage structures, to mass media. As men learn hegemonic expectations by way of popular culture—from Humphrey Bogart to John Wayne—one cannot help but think of the famous line from the hyper-masculine Fight Club (1999), “I just wanted to destroy something beautiful.”
Power over women through hegemonic masculinity may best explain the actions of the men at Ocktoberfest. Alcohol consumption at the event allowed men greater freedom to justify their destructive behavior. Daring one another to physically remove a product of female labor, and their surprise at a woman’s choice to knock the tower down herself, are both in line with this type of power over women through the destruction of something “beautiful”.
Physical violence is not always a key feature of hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1987: 184). When we view toxic masculinity on a smaller scale, away from mass shootings and other high-profile tragedies, we find a form of masculinity that embraces aggression and destruction in our everyday social worlds, but is often excused as being innocent or unworthy of discussion.
Sandra Loughrin is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Her research areas include gender, sexuality, race, and age.
A woman only identified as “Shiori” was the first to speak out to news media in Japan’s #MeToo movement. Shiori was assaulted in a hotel room in 2015 by a very famous Journalist who has written books about Prime Minister Abe. Shiori has yet to recieve justie
The tag #FightTogetherWithShiori has since become synonymous with #MeToo and #TimesUp on Japanese Twitter.
