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Including Men in Conversations Around Feminism

More often than not, when talking about the patriarchy we focus on its harmful effects on women. Since it's a system that’s based on providing men with power and keeping women from having any, it makes sense to see women as the primary victims of the patriarchy.  What’s interesting, though, is that the system that men benefit from is also harming them at the same time.  For men to maintain supremacy in our society they have had to set behavioral standards for themselves leading to the creation of toxic masculinity.  Toxic masculinity dictates that for men to maintain their masculinity and their status as men, they need to behave within certain guidelines. These standards are considered toxic because they are unhealthy and often result in men causing harm to themselves or others.  Masculinity does not have to be toxic though. It can be redefined and attributed with positive behaviors instead of negative ones. So, masculinity is not inherently toxic, but much of w...
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Gay Representation in Bollywood Films

I recently rewatched Kal Ho Naa Ho, a Bollywood movie, with my little sister and while watching the movie, I came across some interesting gay representation. The plot of the movie revolves around Aman and Naina, the two main leads, falling in love and the obstacle in the face of their relationship. Although none of the movie characters are gay, a repeated joke in the film involves the male lead, Aman, and his friend Rohit, being misidentified as a gay couple by Rohit’s maid. Aman plays into the maid’s misconception by kind of flirting with Rohit, while Rohit stays oblivious to his maid’s assumption about his sexuality. While watching these scenes I was reminded of an episode of Seinfeld that we recently watched in American History Through Pop Culture. In said episode of Seinfeld, Jerry and George are mistaken as a gay couple by a reporter who was interviewing Jerry. Upon realizing this George plays into the assumption a bit while Jerry remains ignorant until much too late into his inte...
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Is Gender Dead?

At the end of their article, Dembroff asks, “Are we nearing the end of gender as we know it?”, and I feel that the answer is both yes and no. The way people view gender in American society has changed a lot in the past few years, and I see this evidenced in my own views of gender, which have evolved dramatically over my time in high school. In middle school, I had no idea there existed genders outside of male and female, and now here I am identifying as nonbinary.  Before going further, I think it is important to acknowledge that Dembroff’s question has to be analyzed within the context of American society. If we try to apply what they are saying to the broader world, we run into issues, because the way people in America view gender both now and historically cannot be applied globally. Many indigenous cultures pre-colonization had different perceptions of gender that were not inherently oppressive, and for some cultures reclaiming these views of gender may be more impactful than tr...
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The Awkwardness of Asking for Pronouns

Coming back to Uni this year in person, I noticed a lot of changes that were made around the school for the sake of gender inclusivity. Some of the major changes were the renaming of the bathrooms, the plan to create a gender neutral bathroom, and the addition of a gender neutral locker room. One of the things that stood out to me more was a minor change. I found that, for the first time in my life, some of the teachers were introducing themselves using their pronouns, and asking students to share their own. I thought it was great that some teachers were sharing their pronouns because it helps normalize sharing ones pronouns. When teachers ask students to share their pronouns, though, it can create an awkward and uncomfortable situation. For some students, it may not be a big deal. However, for other students, it puts them in a position where they have to out themselves. Either that, or lie about how they want to be referred to. How one wants to be referred to can vary and an individua...
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