14 thoughts on “8 | Men, Masculinities and Vulnerability”
Marisa Sittheeamorn
I feel like I sound like a broken record at this point, but this week’s readings encouraged me (again) to step outside the binary ways of thinking I’ve been so conditioned to adhere to. Schulz’s article on “ethical loneliness” unpacked how male survivors of sexual violence in hetero-patriarchal societies experience compounded gendered expectations that can intensify their silencing. At the same time, Myrttinen and Schulz critique how the risks associated with centering sexual violence against men and boys (SVAMB) include reinforced notions of hetero-masculinity and patriarchy that fail to consider more intersectional and fluid understandings of gender and sexuality. Together, all the readings made me consider how men and boys can be survivors, victims, and perpetrators of gendered, sexual violence, and patriarchal oppression at the same time.
The non-exclusivity of victimhood and perpetrator has been something I’ve been grappling with for a long time, especially as I seek to draw stricter boundaries for myself within more intimate relationships. While I don’t consider any of my previous or current relationships to have been violent or dangerous, I have definitely tolerated and forgiven behaviors that made me feel unsafe and undervalued in situations where I was overly understanding or empathetic of previous traumas and structures that directly oppressed my partners. On one hand, I have felt betrayed and disrespected by displaced anger, frustration, a raised voice, or name-calling. On the other hand, I have wanted to be forgiving to an imperfect person who has not been given the tools or lived experience to know how to express themselves in a “healthy” or respectful way.
Because I have only dated hetero-sexual men, the gendered hierarchies have always come into play for me as I seek to understand my relational dynamics. I have seen my partners struggle with their masculinities, often feeling a sense of shame and loneliness in opening up about their vulnerabilities and feeling the need to “keep it together” or trying to ignore their feelings and limit any perceived “weakness.” I’ve seen the tropes of being the eldest son and “needing to keep siblings safe” or feeling the pressure of being in a financial place to “take care” of family, but I’ve also witnessed the desperation of not wanting to be confined to the patriarchal structure of thinkings that perpetuated gendered violence and oppression against everyone. I try to validate their feelings and encourage them to step out of conditioned ways of thinking, but maybe there’s a better way to get them to step outside the gender hierarchies they know.
This relational contemplation is exhausting, and it’s not just present within my intimate relationships. I feel it as I try to make sense of my relationship with my dad, brother, and other male friends in my life. I feel myself making excuses for them because they don’t know any better, and I honestly see them as victims of patriarchal structures too… but their lack of awareness hurts me at times. And I’m sure it hurts others too. I don’t know how to make sense of the complexity of it all.
Question:
What substantial progress, either socially or at the policy level, is being made toward transforming gender hierarchies?
Patriarchy harms everyone. A social system obsessed with gender categories and roles to follow limits human life in profound ways. Applying this perspective to men and boys and their scripts as fighters and providers in conflict zones, their vulnerabilities—as human beings before they are men—are often overlooked. Multiple truths can co-exist. It is true that women and girls face a disproportionate risk of sexual violence and are frequently silenced for speaking out about their experiences. It is also true that men and boys who are survivors of sexual violence experience similar silencing and are just as much let down and neglected by institutions. It is also true that men in conflict-ridden Cameroon have experienced stigmatisation and lowered self-esteem because of their gender and what that means within their communities (Brun, 2021). I can empathize with the pains of these experiences, where feelings and hurt are not given the proper space to be acknowledged and processed.
But the pain that comes out of that rage, if not healed entirely, can cause further harms that only serve to reinforce gendered structures of violence. Myrttinen and Schulz (2023), and Fraser (2017) offer nuance in how acknowledging male pains can sometimes go awry. In the latter, there was a response to the case of Lionel Desmond, noting that the women victimized by this violence faced erasure in media and cultural discourse as the main feature of their story was Lionel—his PTSD and how systems failed him. Again, two truths can coexist. Yes, Lionel experienced war traumas and the pressure to perform military masculinity, and yes, he killed three women whose stories were never widely told. The mass majority will only remember Shanna, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond in association with Lionel and the context of violence. The powerful repetition of ‘you are a lady’ in Fraser (2017) points to the additional emotional labour women subsume in managing male grievances towards thwarted masculinities as dictated by the patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity, sometimes getting killed in the process. This is still real violence that cannot be diluted by the fact that the perpetrator was also suffering.
It is not a fight about whose trauma matters more or is worthy of being discussed and acted upon because all forms of gendered violence are interconnected and feed off of each other. No one enters harm for the first time as a perpetrator and we must consider the complexities that come with dismantling the survivor/perpetrator dichotomy when it comes to male-perpetrated violence. This is precisely why the conversation around WPS has to include meaningful engagement with men and masculinities. We have to involve everyone in these projects, especially centring those who have experienced gendered harm. When men experience violence, the emasculation they can experience only exacerbates their isolation and anyone, including gender minorities, can reinforce these scripts. The path forward is a collective commitment to creating healthy masculinities that recognise how men and boys experience harm and discussing ways that we can disrupt cycles of violence.
Questions:
1. How can we incorporate men and boys into our practice of feminist future-making?
2. How can we encourage healthy masculinities without it feeling like an added burden to women and gender minorities?
The majority of the world’s systems and institutions are based on patriarchal values. These systems complement capitalist mindsets, support conservative economies, and help the privileged maintain elite status. However, as the readings reveal, the harm of patriarchy extends beyond expected boundaries, impacting all genders and identities – although some suffer more than others. El Jones’ Remember, You Are a Lady resonated quite a lot with me, recalling my father’s reminders whenever I moved away from “feminine” expectations in my demeanour, attitudes, outfits, desires, or professional ambitions.
Whether in the household, the workplace, educational spaces or in public and communal spaces, patriarchal values persist, normalizing harmful narratives that have limited women’s opportunities and identities for centuries. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that women often find themselves in roles of emotional regulation and caregiving, especially in heterosexual relationships, with expectations rarely reciprocated. Instead of having safe spaces to express their needs, women become that safe space for others.
Brun notes that patriarchal systems hinder men’s ability to express vulnerability, leading to “systemic failures” that impact everyone’s well-being, and Schulz explores how patriarchal norms prevent male survivors of sexual violence in Uganda from accessing the necessary care they deserve. The case of the Desmond family—where Lionel’s war trauma and the pressures of military masculinity led to the loss of Shanna, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond—reveals the damaging ripple effects of unaddressed trauma in men. This also underscores how patriarchal structures often prioritize men’s experiences, overshadowing the stories of women and families who bear the brunt of that harm.
I also want to acknowledge that these rigid gender norms promoted by normalized masculinity don’t just harm men and women; they also marginalize those beyond the binary, whose identities are frequently disregarded under systems built on narrow definitions of gender. Myrttinen and Schulz stress the importance of inclusive frameworks that address gender-based violence without unintentionally reinforcing male privilege but instead dismantle restrictive norms that harm all identities.
I recognize the slight cynicism in my post this week, especially given the topic of vulnerabilities. My experience has been that most men tend to shy away from vulnerability, often seeing it as too close to femininity or as a weakness. When they do express vulnerability, it can sometimes take on forms of manipulation or can end up causing harm to those they’re opening up to, likely due to an underdeveloped emotional framework or lack of healthy models for vulnerability.
I agree that men need more systemic support regarding mental health, but I don’t think I believe it’s our (women’s) responsibility to bear that burden anymore, especially since we are often the most vulnerable to potential harm. Instead, incorporating women’s voices and perspectives into institutional frameworks is essential—not just for acknowledgment but as a catalyst for meaningful change. Matriarchal systems, where women’s leadership is central, offer resilient and community-centred models that demonstrate equitable support. Embracing these approaches could lead to reforming structures that support all genders. However, for this change to be actionable, there needs to be a serious shift in attitudes toward women and power. Only then can these models be fully recognized and integrated into our societal frameworks.
Questions: How can we support men in being vulnerable while ensuring that we don’t hinder progress for women and non-binary individuals?
This has been a total eye-opener, showing me a different perspective on masculinity. As a self-identified feminist, I’ve often viewed women as the primary victims of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and it was challenging for me to recognize that men face significant burdens, too. These readings have prompted me to rethink my concept of feminism, and here are my reflections.
Reading about the Norwegian Refugee Council made me reflect on the common saying, “you’re not man enough.” This phrase resonates deeply, particularly when we consider societal expectations like “if you’re not earning more than your wife” or “if you can’t support your family,” then “you’re not man enough.” Such beliefs are widespread across various backgrounds, illustrating the unique pressures men face. It even made me think of the Titanic, where priority was given to women and children, followed by the wealthy. Perhaps Jack would have survived if he were born a woman. This expectation for men to constantly prove their worth places them in highly vulnerable positions and highlights the need to rethink masculinity and humanity.
The situation in Northern Uganda, where casual rapes and GBV against men are coupled with stigma, and where individuals like Okerwa struggle to seek help—even from Human Rights Commissions—made me pause. For male victims of GBV, the idea of approaching the highest courts for justice seems almost impossible. It is demoralizing and dehumanizing, amplifying the harm done to the victims. My empathy for transgender individuals in India has deepened after reading this article, as the burden of ensuring their safety while facing social stigmatization is unimaginable.
Reading Myrttinen’s article introduced me to the term “re-masculinization,” which refers to the efforts to re-establish a masculine sense of self among men who have endured conflict, displacement, or violence that makes them feel “feminized.” This new concept has further reshaped my understanding of GBV, especially as the author rightly points out that feminist scholars often focus disproportionately on GBV against women and girls. In contrast, sexual violence against men and boys is only recently being acknowledged, even by the UN.
Families feel immense pride when their sons join the armed forces, but at what cost? The case of Desmond serves as a powerful example of the weight and aftermath soldiers endure, particularly when faced with PTSD—a reality many prefer not to acknowledge. Reflecting on the deeper reasons that might have driven him to take such extreme steps has made me question the entire notion of romanticizing the military and armed forces by linking it to men and masculinity.
The questions I got:
It took centuries to establish some degree of awareness and vigilance around violence against women and girls. I truly wonder how long it will take before we begin to discuss re-masculinization in a meaningful way, and how we can bring these issues to light.
Why is the expectation to “stay strong” so systematically imposed on men? Do they have any way out?
The idea of victimhood really stuck out to me in the readings, especially in the short article from Brun. In the words of Firmin, a young man seeking refuge in Cameroon, “…militaries could not think that a young man could be neutral… There’s no safe position you can adopt.” This reminded me of how during mass atrocities, the news often emphasizes the deaths of women and children. Not to say that these deaths aren’t horrific and worthy of sympathy, but why are the men being massacred en masse not granted the same humanity? This begs the question, who can be a victim? Who is seen as a politically neutral human being whose suffering is worthy of our sympathy? Men and even young boys are often exempt from this status, regardless of their individual personhood and experiences. When we look at which victims of crises are held up as examples of cruelty and violence, it is often mothers, young girls, and maybe young boys. Our pervasive cultural understanding of masculinity seems to discount the reality that men and boys are also whole persons, worthy of care when treated with cruelty and violence.
I’ve mentioned in class, but I have four little brothers, and I feel a lot of care and protectiveness towards them. Because of my role in raising them and seeing how they interact with society, I can’t help but feel heartbroken when young boys are socialized to believe that it is somehow ‘manly’ to face and suffer through violence. Okwera’s story was a difficult read, especially how he suffered in silence for over 12 years, only for his experiences to be disregarded (Schulz).
However, another big takeaway I had was that at the end of the day, as much as male victims of violence are valid and worthy of care and support, overwhelmingly it is still men who are committing that violence, and the ultimate perpetrator is still the patriarchy. Furthermore, as Myrttinen & Schulz discuss, it is patriarchal mechanisms that are being used to both prevent men from getting help, and in the problematic ways that CRSV is often ‘treated’, referring to the need for men to engage in “re-masculinization”.
These patriarchal mechanisms were also apparent in the story of Shanna, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond; in El Jones words, “Over and over again we see the pattern of “humanizing the (usually) male predators and murderers of women while the achievements and life stories of their victims are ignored.” Men’s mental health is undeniably important, and it’s clear from this story that neglecting this pervasive issue has horrific consequences. However, in my everyday life, I usually only hear it championed by men as a ‘devil’s advocate’ type point when we’re discussing feminist ideas. Men’s mental health and care needs to be rooted in discussions of the larger systems at play.
Here are my questions (reiterated from above):
Who can be a victim? Who is seen as a politically neutral human being whose suffering is worthy of our care and sympathy?
How can we frame men’s mental health and care in ways that address patriarchal structures rather than reinforce them?
So many complex feelings around this week’s readings. I was scrolling on Instagram a couple nights ago when I came across a poem from someone named Lucas Jones, called “Boys are much softer than anyone thinks.” Here is an excerpt from the first half of the poem:
Boys mould to the box boys build/ And if the box is sharp and violence filled, then the soft and gentle in the boy gets killed/ And the boy gets mad and resents how he feels/ Then the box is a coffin/ Then the thing gets sealed/ And the boys we’re all copying leave us in their wills, an inherited anger/ And lacking in skills of emotional management/ The boys get billed with the debt of the trauma/ And forever it swills around in your bottle. Or pint. Or pills/ And metastasizes til the boy gets ill/ Then behaves like a prick to all of the girls/ And it is your damage to fix. Not hers. (Jones, 2024)
While this poem is not discussing SVAMB in conflict settings, is focused on the build-up of male aggression, and reinforces the gender-binary view of sexual violence as something men do against women, I think there are some valuable overarching themes that connect to our readings.
The hegemonic gender roles that the patriarchy, and in turn the institutions and people that participate in patriarchy, impose on men restricts their expression of their emotion and vulnerability. In Schulz’s “ethical violence” reading, male survivors of sexual violence in Northern Uganda experience multilayered, continuous layers of neglect and abandonment from their community and institutions that are supposed to help them in crises (Schulz, 2018, pg. 584). From laws that don’t include men/boys as victims in definition of rape, to avoiding reporting to your abusers that make up the current government, to being turned away by the UHCR, a constant thread is that men are not encouraged to speak up about sexual violence (and are often ignored or silenced if they do). At the same time, “masculinity nostalgia” that brings a return to men enjoying benefits of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy after being “emasculated” is a common desire for male survivors of sexual violence (Myrttinen et al., 2023, pg. 401). The very same system (patriarchy) which is denying men the full freedom to express and asserts violence on them, is the system in which some of their desired healing takes place, because of how ingrained gender roles are in identity.
The alternative to reinforcing these roles–men as the only head of the household, economic breadwinners, or the “strong, powerful ones” (aka not feminine, which is always equated with weakness) is to explore alternative masculinities. Jones mentions this in the second half of his poem. He encourages men and boys not to harm others, to ask for help, be open about their fears and anxieties, for the people listening to them to empathize, and for boys to grow. While alternative masculinities are being explored by some mens’ sexual violence survivors groups (ex. Okwera in Men of Courage, Men of Hope), there is also the saddening reality that SVAMB groups are often competing with VAWG groups for funding. How do we get funders not to see VAWG, diverse SOGIESC, and SVAMB as groups in competition for funding from one pot?
And then a whole different slew of questions arise from the Fraser and Jones articles: who do we learn more about in cases of violence – the abuser or victim/survivor (particularly when some people may be both)? How do intersections of race, sexuality, economic status, religion, and other identities determine who receives empathy, and who receives blame? Who gets understanding in their violent acts?
It seems that Alyssa’s reflection on this week’s readings start off the same way and I will echo her words, but patriarchy does seem to harm everyone. The standards and expectations that patriarchies set across various societies harm anyone regardless of how they identify or present. The readings for this week dive into this problem particularly as to how these socially constructed expectations harm men in the present. Men that are unable to fit into these expectations set upon them due to their gender identity in patriarchal societies end up suffering and struggling in similar ways that anyone else does in these societies. Even though men are more likely to succeed in patriarchal societies due to society being built by them and for them, these societies also attach certain characteristics or values which define what they view as a “man”. Once men do not fit into these patriarchal labels, they suffer in several ways which our readings covered. Men who cannot conform to unattainable models and standards of masculinity harms their well-being and sense of self-worth (Brun, 2021). One man that was interviewed mentioned that the fact that it got so difficult to provide for his family (particularly women in his family) made him lose his fiancée and he truly feels that his own mother thinks less of him as a result (Brun, 2021).
Men being viewed as a greater threat, especially in conflict zones, means that many of them get targeted armed attacks more than others which increases their risk of injury or death due to conflict (Brun, 2021). This is another example as to how men are harmed by patriarchal standards. Since the patriarchy expects men to be aggressive, manly, masculine, more violent, they are then seen as a greater threat during conflict as they are seen as those most capable of being violent.
On the other hand, it was disturbing to read that in recent times, during Desmond’s case, most media focused on the killer’s life and his struggles. No one seemed to extend the same level of empathy towards the victims that tragically lost their lives. Another article talked about how Black women, especially in Canada, are never talked about or covered in media, and Desmond’s case was no exception. I would imagine that we would have learned from history, where even the Canadian woman of African origin (Viola Desmond)’s story is barely known by Canadians even though she is on the $10 CAD banknote. One would imagine that this issue would not still exist today the same way it did in the past.
My reflection and the themes of this week lead me to develop these questions around vulnerability, which are: How much does a man’s upbringing and socialization when they were young influence their attitude towards vulnerability in society? Would the only way to adequately address men’s vulnerability be to raise them when they are in their early years to reject traditional patriarchal views on masculinity? I originally would say yes but I fear that there are so many factors in play across societies that the answer is not this simple.
In discussions of masculinity, I find it noteworthy how the qualities of traditionally valued—resilience, toughness, and fortitude—can also make men vulnerable in times of war and conflict. Masculine ideals of strength place men, especially in conflict zones, in heightened physical and psychological danger. This paradox reveals how men are also bound by systemic gender expectations, facing violence, trauma, and social pressure to fulfill the protector role, often at great personal risk.
Brun’s article highlights that men and boys face distinct threats in crisis situations, often becoming primary targets for armed attacks. In many conflict contexts, men are at greater risk of arrest, torture, and killing. The notion that armed forces often direct their aggression towards opposition leaders raises important questions about the intersections of power and vulnerability. While power is typically viewed as a dominant or positive attribute, possessing power, such as being a leader of an armed group or opposition force, can actually place individuals at greater risk of being targeted in violent contexts. In addition, neutrality is rarely an option, as men are pressured to join armed groups and face suspicion from both sides if they refuse, leaving them with no safe choices.
Men’s vulnerability in these contexts is exacerbated by societal expectations to act as protectors and providers for their families, exposing them to psychological distress, feelings of powerlessness, and social judgment for perceived failures. The expectation to be the guardians in times of crisis leads to feelings of inadequacy and suppressed emotions, contributing to mental health struggles that can escalate into household violence. When combined with restricted mobility and social stigma, their inability to fulfill these roles deepens their sense of helplessness and frustration. The readings prompt me to think about the need for a broader understanding of masculinity—one that allows for emotional expression and acknowledges the mental health struggles many men face.
This situation reflects Schulz’s concept of “ethical loneliness,” a profound sense of abandonment that survivors feel when institutions fail to respond adequately to their trauma. Male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, for example, often face silence around their experiences, as even support processes tend to overlook them. This lack of institutional support intensifies their trauma and deepens isolation, ultimately denying male survivors the opportunity to fully express and process their experiences. The silence surrounding their experiences is a reminder of the societal stigma that continues to overshadow their trauma, which highlights the importance of the role of institutions in providing support that recognizes the unique struggles of male survivors.
The article from the Halifax Examiner identifies another systemic issue: violence against Black women is often normalized and obscured by a focus on issues affecting Black men, such as police brutality and mass incarceration. This leads to systemic neglect of the struggles of Black women and reinforces expectations that they tolerate such treatment. Consequently, this dynamic illustrates an intersectional vulnerability where both gender and race contribute to the disregard of violence against Black women in marginalized communities.
Myrttinen and Schulz critique the discourse on sexual violence against men and boys for sometimes reinforcing traditional masculine ideals rather than challenging them. They note that some male survivors prefer to return to pre-conflict gender dynamics rooted in patriarchy, which risks marginalizing diverse gender identities by confining solutions to a framework focused on heteronormative masculinity.
Question:
How can we create a cohesive response to gender-based violence that effectively addresses the needs of men, women, and gender-diverse individuals?
This week’s readings were difficult and moving (as has been the case for many of these weeks so perhaps this isn’t surprising anymore). I loved the Shulz piece, and found myself particularly drawn to Okwera’s story. I’m making this about me, but it really did break my heart to think that just as he felt ready to broach sharing his story, 12 years after the fact, the systems supposedly in place to respond to harm completely and utterly failed him (a system failing is also unsurprising, but still). Reading about the timeline here has brought me back to my reflections from last week about time, and our inability to spend the time necessary with harm to meaningfully see and address it. 12 years is a long time. It’s an even longer time to be alone with something. And yet, it’s also a really short amount of time– short enough to be forgotten in legal memory, and to be excluded from a transitional process’s legal mandates.
Schulz’s discussion on compounded silences really stuck with me, and particularly the parts of ethical loneliness that focus on the denial of hearing someone’s testimony, including Stauffer’s commentary on people who “emerge from [that] injustice only to find that the surrounding world will not listen to or cannot properly hear their testimony”. To me, the word loneliness is incredibly powerful, and I don’t even think I can really articulate the affect that “ethical loneliness” has had for me. The abandonment of someone in a time of hurt is truly disturbing, and to me this truly puts the final nail in the coffin of the phrase “falling through the cracks” used to describe when systems don’t account for peoples’ experiences, as if structural abandonment isn’t a more accurate term– it’s giving “the banality of evil”.
The question for me then, is what is the antidote to ethical loneliness? How can people be seen, heard, and truly known in their experiences? Schulz offers commentary on this, but to me I think a lot of the answer lies in Ojeda’s concept of listening across harm that I wrote about a couple weeks ago. I really loved this concept, but I think after these readings I was reflecting on the difference between listening and truly hearing, and at the risk of being nitpicky and overly academic, I think I would remix Ojeda’s phrase to be: “hearing across harm”. I wonder what implications there are for adopting a model of care and hearing across harm in the face of ethical loneliness. The Myrtinnen and Shulz piece explored this through their focus on a relational approach, which I really liked, and want to think about more. I think that hearing across harm could be a helpful lens to addressing the tensions they describe in doing work that balances the need to incorporate men and boys in work with the need to recognize the specific experiences of women, girls, and gender diverse people. Especially in contexts where there is “friction” because there is a lot of fear about the scarcity of resources and attention, I think that listening across harm could be a tool to validate the experiences and priorities of survivors while still situating their experiences in the context of broader power dynamics. One of my takeaways here is that this work seems to require a fierce gentleness- there is attention to the specific concerns, fears, traumas, and hopes of individual survivors and affected communities, and a fierce commitment to advocacy, while also requiring a firm dedication to protecting advocacy from itself to avoid entrenching the systems that drive harm.
My questions for this week are:
How do we avoid “fetishizing” gender-based and sexual violence in our work?
How do we honour survivors’ choices and priorities when we feel as though they’re “setting the movement back”, or could ultimately reinforce the status quo? How do we navigate this tension between trauma-informed and agency driven care and dismantling harmful status quos?
A common piece of ‘criticism’ we I would receive when working in gender based violence education was “men get raped too”, intended to insinuate my work did not support male survivors. Ironically I ran a number of male-centric programs and sessions, but that’s not really the point of this anecdote. Why this phrase comes to mind is an idea which stuck out to me in the readings today; that when we bring a gendered lens to violence or sexual violence, women and men become pitted against each other. I found this to be an important and valuable example of ways in which the patriarchy harms everyone. Myrttinen and Schulz’s article considers how even in cases of attempting to develop work on sexual violence against men and boys, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic language and rhetoric are at risk of becoming part of the discussion, hindering progress and imposing further violence on communities. While the authors argue for inclusive, holistic programming which understands the intersectional and relational nature of gender, it’s not clear to me how we can actionably move towards this future.
We saw in the murders of Shanna, Aaliyah and Brenda Desmond, a crime committed by Lionel Desmond how systems of violence bleed into eachother creating a cycle of violence which hurts those who are the most vulnerable the most. Lionel Desmond’s experience with violence in Afghanistan was certainly traumatic for him. But this violence put his family in a violence situation which they had no control of or support during, and as Black women, Shanna, Aaliyah and Brenda faced social isolation which only heightened their risk of experiencing harm. Ultimately this system led to their lives being taken. This case and the variance in media coverage discussing it that we looked at really emphasized to me the confounding nature of the patriarchy. I think personally, I have had to recently come to terms with my own biases within the patriarchy. In this class For example, we have considered stereotypes which paint women as victims and men as protectors, in my life I’ve experienced this victim or submissive stereotype being applied to me and this has perpetrated harm in my life, and as a young woman today I’m also exposed to a lot of content online and in feminist circles which spout a ‘fuck all men’ rhetoric as a response to harm experienced at the hands of the patriarchy. While women deserve to feel rage and anger and to seek justice for violence and harm perpetrated by men and I believe women should support each other in these journey’s to justice, I have also been reckoning with the idea that in order to move forward, I also need to unlearn my own biases against masculinity. The patriarchy has coopted masculinity as a term synonymous with violence, aggression, and isolation, but this is not what masculinity is about, its what the patriarchy is about.
Today’s readings helped me to consider the ways patriarchy hurts us all, and to flesh out a better idea of how we can move forwards as communities even as so much violence and harm continues to be experienced and perpetrated.
Question
How can we use understandings of gender as relational as a tool moving towards a feminist future?
How can we simultaneously achieve goals of seeking a feminist means justice for survivors of violence, gain accountability from perpetrators, and dismantle systems which allow this violence to occur?
I went through the last week reflecting on what was said in our last class. One question raised by Judith kept coming back to me: “How do I perpetuate micro-violences in my own body and to those around me?” This question reframed the question posed in the first week by Elena: “Where is war?”
As I went through the week, I realized that war, in the micro scale, is visible on my body. (I feel a little dramatic saying this, but then I listened to the podcast wherein Karen Jones compared her father’s war to her own.) Somehow this illustrated internalized misogyny better to me than many of the other ways I have tried to understand it. After all, that is part of the insidiousness of internalizing these structures: they’re hard to recognize.
I think certain patterns of thinking were clearer to me this week because I was already questioning my internalized misogyny from a new framework. For example, I work at a centre that supports families going through separation. We are particularly attentive to family violence, and especially given the fact that family violence often increases around the time of separation. But I am more accustomed to discussing this issue with women. On Thursday, of the four cases of family violence I supported clients with, three of those seeking support were men. In one of the cases, I didn’t recognize that he had safety concerns at first. In fact, he brought it up in a way that he could have played it off as a joke had I not asked further.
So, in going through the readings this week, I already had certain questions running through my mind: how often do we miss men’s vulnerabilities because we have not accepted they exist? What are the social, structural, and personal barriers to acknowledging these vulnerabilities?
The Schultz article draws from the concept of “ethical loneliness” developed by Stauffer wherein ethical loneliness is described not only as the result of persons having been unjustly treated by humans and social structures, but also the failing to listen to survivors when they voice their experiences of injustice, resulting in a silencing or erasure. What makes matters more complicated is that there are ripple effects to “ethical loneliness.” The news articles showed a deadly example of this: the CBC article by Laura Fraser shone light on the systemic failures that former soldier Lionel Desmond experienced, while El Jones’ article explored the “double-erasure” of black women.
So aside from the questions I am already asking myself, this week, I am also asking,
How do we, on the micro and macro scale, perpetuate the silencing of those who have been unjustly treated, especially when it comes to those whose suffering we wouldn’t expect?
I will admit that discourses about masculinities usually frustrates me – not because I do not see its value, but because, like neuroscience and space politics, I am very glad that other people are experts in it so that I do not have to be. I often find it frustrating to be a woman in conversations about masculinity as the rest of this reflection reveals. Anyway, shockingly it turns out that discourses about masculinities are unavoidable because we are all living in them all the time. Who knew!?
Brun, Schulz and Jones knew. And despite my averseness to discourses about masculinities, every one of these readings felt personal. Brun’s discussion of men “caught in a spiral of fear” shrinking their social lives tugged at my heartstrings even after I had prickled at the statistic regarding men enduring greater risk of violence directly related to the conflict. “Yeah,” I thought, “but I wonder who is enduring a greater risk of violence indirectly related to the conflict.” But Brun’s discussion of men limiting movement and avoiding gatherings, remaining at home contrasted so sharply with my experience. Every time I have felt threatened by, endured, or been proximate to violence, I have sought other women. It is often how we survive. We make eye contact on crowded trains and dark streets, we hype each other up in the bathroom of the karaoke bar, we live communally to survive, we gossip to build collective knowledge, and on and on and on. This is not to say that women do not impose upon one another forms of ethical loneliness (or that are never perpetrators of violence against other women), but that the gender bias that often excludes women from exercising power also might protect us from being targeted as holders of power in a way that is not applicable to men.
I also thought I had things to say about the Fraser article – both of my grandfathers were veterans who struggled with textbook cases of PTSD – until I read El Jones’ piece. Now I have different things to say. My grandmother died in 2020 after a long ordeal with Alzheimers. The last time I saw her when she saw me back, we were sitting in her living room and she reached over to me, held both my hands, looked me in the eyes and said, “I have something for you, I really want you to have it and I think you’ll need it for the rest of your life.” Then she handed me “Miss Manners Guide To Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour,” and told me it was how she kept her husband pleased. This was a real shock from a woman whose obituary started, “for the first time in her adult life, the ferocious Barbara Alice Sarson has done something that she cannot tell anyone how to do better,”* and she WAS ferocious: the breadwinner for her entire marriage with a spectacular career of service, raised four kids and adopted four more, and had strength of character that would blow you away. Here she was, in her final moments of lucidity, advising her sixteen-year-old granddaughter on how to keep a man!
It’s taken me years (and many trips to my therapist) to come to the conclusions El Jones comes to her in piece. Barb was not giving me frivolous middle-school girl advice. She was desperately trying to explain to me how to survive for the rest of my life. She was giving me the gift of the wisdom she had. Last year, I was taking stock of life (as you do, I have found, more and more when you turn 26 – warning for the rest of you yet to get there) and realized that, as many generations back as I can count, every woman I am descended from on both sides of my family was in an abusive marriage by age 26. “I can think of all the women I know in my family who, if it were me, would tell me the same. ‘You made your bed,’ they would say, not because they didn’t love me, not because they were ignorant, not because they didn’t want me to be safe, but because that was the script they knew for survival” is one of the most impactful and resounding things I have ever read.
It also provides an avenue for a degree of hope. Their endurance, their survival, it is OUR gift. Now, I think of all the ways that my grandmothers would be disappointed in how I am squandering my youth away being unmarried and super committed to my ambitions and how their disappointment is a marker of their successes. They survived so they could be disappointed by my choices in the afterlife.
Discussion questions:
– What are the expectations of masculinity of how men use their communities? How do men find safety in one another?
– How do we change the way we tell our families’ stories? How do we change the way we tell our societies’ stories?
The readings for this week reminded me of a video I keep seeing on my timeline on social media. It is a YouTube video by Jubilee titled “Conservative Teens vs Liberal Parents | Middle Ground” in which, as the title suggests, conservative teens and liberal parents debate/argue/talk over each other about topics like whether the government has the right or not to tell people what to do with their bodies or being a LGBTQ+ ally and things like that. At one point in the video, when discussing bodily autonomy and the government, one of the male conservative teens says something along the lines of “men commit more suicide, most people who work in dangerous places are men, most people fighting war are men” and one liberal parent responds with “who set that system up?”. Clearly, as the readings by Myrttinen and Schulz suggest, there is a lot more nuance to this, particularly in contexts like Uganda and the LRA or Cameroon. Echoing what Alyssa said in her reflection, multiple truths can and do exist at the same time.
The topic of men and vulnerability particularly reminds me of my dad, who may or may not have experienced some type of abuse during his teen years. The reason why I say may or may not have, is because I don’t know what happened, my mom doesn’t what happened, even my grandparents parents don’t know what happened. My dad has only just sort of alluded to “something” happening and that it is a difficult topic for him. The article by Brun and the failure to address the vulnerability of men and boys I think pretty much explains my thoughts about that. And yet, at the same time I go back to the article El Jones where she explains the realities that Black women experience. Particularly in terms of domestic violence, I cannot stop thinking about the thousands of women in Mexico who have been murdered by their husbands or partners. I keep thinking about Gisele Pelicot and I think about Rebecca Cheptegei, the Olympic runner killed by her partner. I think about how there are stories of men who worked at Bletchley Park (the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during WWII that was a secret unitl the 1970’s) and because they were not part of army, and therefore did not have to wear a uniform, they felt guilt and shame for “not doing their part”, particularly when their kids were asked in school why were their dads not fighting. I keep thinking about how we tend to equate war as something masculine, without taking into account how women participate in war as well; how war is masculine and yet so little care is given to men who have experienced horrible things; how it is almost like a vicious circle.
Many thoughts this week.
1. What is the role of men in the making of a feminist future?
2. How can we dismantle a system that hurts men and boys, while also dealing with the fact that there are many men who do not want, and would not do anything, to dismantle said system?
I don’t fully agree with the concerns that bringing SVAMB into the WPS agenda would center the needs and experiences of men at the expense of women. SVAMB and VAGW is two sides of the same coin with the same underlying causes. To tackle systemic causes of sexual violence, both SVAMB and VAGW need to be addressed.
Myrttien and Schulz (2023) use the term “re-masculizing” to describe part of the healing process for survivors of SVAMB. The article criticizes this as reinforcing patricidal structures that romanticize the ideal of masculinity and what it means to be a man. Making space for SVAMB in the WPS agenda, and post-conflict transitional justice processes needs to not just include space for male survivors to come forward and seek support, but also an acknowledgement of underlying structural gendered norms and hierarchies. Processes of ethical Silencing (Schulz, 2018) also reinforce patricidal structures. I don’t see how we can exclude men from sexual violence discussions without reinforcing gender hierarchies that see men as only perpetrators and women as victims. If we want a true feminist future, we must create space for masculinity to be able to be associated with vulnerability.
I have more thoughts but I am having trouble collecting them and I am already past the submission time so I will just end with my question,
Do we have to do away with masculinity entirely, or can we re-imagine a feminist future version of masculinity?
Can the healing processes for survivors of SVAMB also address gender anxiety?
I feel like I sound like a broken record at this point, but this week’s readings encouraged me (again) to step outside the binary ways of thinking I’ve been so conditioned to adhere to. Schulz’s article on “ethical loneliness” unpacked how male survivors of sexual violence in hetero-patriarchal societies experience compounded gendered expectations that can intensify their silencing. At the same time, Myrttinen and Schulz critique how the risks associated with centering sexual violence against men and boys (SVAMB) include reinforced notions of hetero-masculinity and patriarchy that fail to consider more intersectional and fluid understandings of gender and sexuality. Together, all the readings made me consider how men and boys can be survivors, victims, and perpetrators of gendered, sexual violence, and patriarchal oppression at the same time.
The non-exclusivity of victimhood and perpetrator has been something I’ve been grappling with for a long time, especially as I seek to draw stricter boundaries for myself within more intimate relationships. While I don’t consider any of my previous or current relationships to have been violent or dangerous, I have definitely tolerated and forgiven behaviors that made me feel unsafe and undervalued in situations where I was overly understanding or empathetic of previous traumas and structures that directly oppressed my partners. On one hand, I have felt betrayed and disrespected by displaced anger, frustration, a raised voice, or name-calling. On the other hand, I have wanted to be forgiving to an imperfect person who has not been given the tools or lived experience to know how to express themselves in a “healthy” or respectful way.
Because I have only dated hetero-sexual men, the gendered hierarchies have always come into play for me as I seek to understand my relational dynamics. I have seen my partners struggle with their masculinities, often feeling a sense of shame and loneliness in opening up about their vulnerabilities and feeling the need to “keep it together” or trying to ignore their feelings and limit any perceived “weakness.” I’ve seen the tropes of being the eldest son and “needing to keep siblings safe” or feeling the pressure of being in a financial place to “take care” of family, but I’ve also witnessed the desperation of not wanting to be confined to the patriarchal structure of thinkings that perpetuated gendered violence and oppression against everyone. I try to validate their feelings and encourage them to step out of conditioned ways of thinking, but maybe there’s a better way to get them to step outside the gender hierarchies they know.
This relational contemplation is exhausting, and it’s not just present within my intimate relationships. I feel it as I try to make sense of my relationship with my dad, brother, and other male friends in my life. I feel myself making excuses for them because they don’t know any better, and I honestly see them as victims of patriarchal structures too… but their lack of awareness hurts me at times. And I’m sure it hurts others too. I don’t know how to make sense of the complexity of it all.
Question:
What substantial progress, either socially or at the policy level, is being made toward transforming gender hierarchies?
Patriarchy harms everyone. A social system obsessed with gender categories and roles to follow limits human life in profound ways. Applying this perspective to men and boys and their scripts as fighters and providers in conflict zones, their vulnerabilities—as human beings before they are men—are often overlooked. Multiple truths can co-exist. It is true that women and girls face a disproportionate risk of sexual violence and are frequently silenced for speaking out about their experiences. It is also true that men and boys who are survivors of sexual violence experience similar silencing and are just as much let down and neglected by institutions. It is also true that men in conflict-ridden Cameroon have experienced stigmatisation and lowered self-esteem because of their gender and what that means within their communities (Brun, 2021). I can empathize with the pains of these experiences, where feelings and hurt are not given the proper space to be acknowledged and processed.
But the pain that comes out of that rage, if not healed entirely, can cause further harms that only serve to reinforce gendered structures of violence. Myrttinen and Schulz (2023), and Fraser (2017) offer nuance in how acknowledging male pains can sometimes go awry. In the latter, there was a response to the case of Lionel Desmond, noting that the women victimized by this violence faced erasure in media and cultural discourse as the main feature of their story was Lionel—his PTSD and how systems failed him. Again, two truths can coexist. Yes, Lionel experienced war traumas and the pressure to perform military masculinity, and yes, he killed three women whose stories were never widely told. The mass majority will only remember Shanna, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond in association with Lionel and the context of violence. The powerful repetition of ‘you are a lady’ in Fraser (2017) points to the additional emotional labour women subsume in managing male grievances towards thwarted masculinities as dictated by the patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity, sometimes getting killed in the process. This is still real violence that cannot be diluted by the fact that the perpetrator was also suffering.
It is not a fight about whose trauma matters more or is worthy of being discussed and acted upon because all forms of gendered violence are interconnected and feed off of each other. No one enters harm for the first time as a perpetrator and we must consider the complexities that come with dismantling the survivor/perpetrator dichotomy when it comes to male-perpetrated violence. This is precisely why the conversation around WPS has to include meaningful engagement with men and masculinities. We have to involve everyone in these projects, especially centring those who have experienced gendered harm. When men experience violence, the emasculation they can experience only exacerbates their isolation and anyone, including gender minorities, can reinforce these scripts. The path forward is a collective commitment to creating healthy masculinities that recognise how men and boys experience harm and discussing ways that we can disrupt cycles of violence.
Questions:
1. How can we incorporate men and boys into our practice of feminist future-making?
2. How can we encourage healthy masculinities without it feeling like an added burden to women and gender minorities?
Side note! Some resources on healthy masculinities:
– 10 tips to promote healthy masculinity: https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/10-tips-to-promote-healthy-masculinity-The-White-Ribbon-Campaign.pdf
– Next Gen Men (nonprofit): https://www.nextgenmen.ca/about
– SFU Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2024, Masculinities for Humanity: https://the-peak.ca/2024/01/svspo-talks-masculinity-for-sexual-assault-awareness-month/
The majority of the world’s systems and institutions are based on patriarchal values. These systems complement capitalist mindsets, support conservative economies, and help the privileged maintain elite status. However, as the readings reveal, the harm of patriarchy extends beyond expected boundaries, impacting all genders and identities – although some suffer more than others. El Jones’ Remember, You Are a Lady resonated quite a lot with me, recalling my father’s reminders whenever I moved away from “feminine” expectations in my demeanour, attitudes, outfits, desires, or professional ambitions.
Whether in the household, the workplace, educational spaces or in public and communal spaces, patriarchal values persist, normalizing harmful narratives that have limited women’s opportunities and identities for centuries. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that women often find themselves in roles of emotional regulation and caregiving, especially in heterosexual relationships, with expectations rarely reciprocated. Instead of having safe spaces to express their needs, women become that safe space for others.
Brun notes that patriarchal systems hinder men’s ability to express vulnerability, leading to “systemic failures” that impact everyone’s well-being, and Schulz explores how patriarchal norms prevent male survivors of sexual violence in Uganda from accessing the necessary care they deserve. The case of the Desmond family—where Lionel’s war trauma and the pressures of military masculinity led to the loss of Shanna, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond—reveals the damaging ripple effects of unaddressed trauma in men. This also underscores how patriarchal structures often prioritize men’s experiences, overshadowing the stories of women and families who bear the brunt of that harm.
I also want to acknowledge that these rigid gender norms promoted by normalized masculinity don’t just harm men and women; they also marginalize those beyond the binary, whose identities are frequently disregarded under systems built on narrow definitions of gender. Myrttinen and Schulz stress the importance of inclusive frameworks that address gender-based violence without unintentionally reinforcing male privilege but instead dismantle restrictive norms that harm all identities.
I recognize the slight cynicism in my post this week, especially given the topic of vulnerabilities. My experience has been that most men tend to shy away from vulnerability, often seeing it as too close to femininity or as a weakness. When they do express vulnerability, it can sometimes take on forms of manipulation or can end up causing harm to those they’re opening up to, likely due to an underdeveloped emotional framework or lack of healthy models for vulnerability.
I agree that men need more systemic support regarding mental health, but I don’t think I believe it’s our (women’s) responsibility to bear that burden anymore, especially since we are often the most vulnerable to potential harm. Instead, incorporating women’s voices and perspectives into institutional frameworks is essential—not just for acknowledgment but as a catalyst for meaningful change. Matriarchal systems, where women’s leadership is central, offer resilient and community-centred models that demonstrate equitable support. Embracing these approaches could lead to reforming structures that support all genders. However, for this change to be actionable, there needs to be a serious shift in attitudes toward women and power. Only then can these models be fully recognized and integrated into our societal frameworks.
Questions: How can we support men in being vulnerable while ensuring that we don’t hinder progress for women and non-binary individuals?
This has been a total eye-opener, showing me a different perspective on masculinity. As a self-identified feminist, I’ve often viewed women as the primary victims of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and it was challenging for me to recognize that men face significant burdens, too. These readings have prompted me to rethink my concept of feminism, and here are my reflections.
Reading about the Norwegian Refugee Council made me reflect on the common saying, “you’re not man enough.” This phrase resonates deeply, particularly when we consider societal expectations like “if you’re not earning more than your wife” or “if you can’t support your family,” then “you’re not man enough.” Such beliefs are widespread across various backgrounds, illustrating the unique pressures men face. It even made me think of the Titanic, where priority was given to women and children, followed by the wealthy. Perhaps Jack would have survived if he were born a woman. This expectation for men to constantly prove their worth places them in highly vulnerable positions and highlights the need to rethink masculinity and humanity.
The situation in Northern Uganda, where casual rapes and GBV against men are coupled with stigma, and where individuals like Okerwa struggle to seek help—even from Human Rights Commissions—made me pause. For male victims of GBV, the idea of approaching the highest courts for justice seems almost impossible. It is demoralizing and dehumanizing, amplifying the harm done to the victims. My empathy for transgender individuals in India has deepened after reading this article, as the burden of ensuring their safety while facing social stigmatization is unimaginable.
Reading Myrttinen’s article introduced me to the term “re-masculinization,” which refers to the efforts to re-establish a masculine sense of self among men who have endured conflict, displacement, or violence that makes them feel “feminized.” This new concept has further reshaped my understanding of GBV, especially as the author rightly points out that feminist scholars often focus disproportionately on GBV against women and girls. In contrast, sexual violence against men and boys is only recently being acknowledged, even by the UN.
Families feel immense pride when their sons join the armed forces, but at what cost? The case of Desmond serves as a powerful example of the weight and aftermath soldiers endure, particularly when faced with PTSD—a reality many prefer not to acknowledge. Reflecting on the deeper reasons that might have driven him to take such extreme steps has made me question the entire notion of romanticizing the military and armed forces by linking it to men and masculinity.
The questions I got:
It took centuries to establish some degree of awareness and vigilance around violence against women and girls. I truly wonder how long it will take before we begin to discuss re-masculinization in a meaningful way, and how we can bring these issues to light.
Why is the expectation to “stay strong” so systematically imposed on men? Do they have any way out?
The idea of victimhood really stuck out to me in the readings, especially in the short article from Brun. In the words of Firmin, a young man seeking refuge in Cameroon, “…militaries could not think that a young man could be neutral… There’s no safe position you can adopt.” This reminded me of how during mass atrocities, the news often emphasizes the deaths of women and children. Not to say that these deaths aren’t horrific and worthy of sympathy, but why are the men being massacred en masse not granted the same humanity? This begs the question, who can be a victim? Who is seen as a politically neutral human being whose suffering is worthy of our sympathy? Men and even young boys are often exempt from this status, regardless of their individual personhood and experiences. When we look at which victims of crises are held up as examples of cruelty and violence, it is often mothers, young girls, and maybe young boys. Our pervasive cultural understanding of masculinity seems to discount the reality that men and boys are also whole persons, worthy of care when treated with cruelty and violence.
I’ve mentioned in class, but I have four little brothers, and I feel a lot of care and protectiveness towards them. Because of my role in raising them and seeing how they interact with society, I can’t help but feel heartbroken when young boys are socialized to believe that it is somehow ‘manly’ to face and suffer through violence. Okwera’s story was a difficult read, especially how he suffered in silence for over 12 years, only for his experiences to be disregarded (Schulz).
However, another big takeaway I had was that at the end of the day, as much as male victims of violence are valid and worthy of care and support, overwhelmingly it is still men who are committing that violence, and the ultimate perpetrator is still the patriarchy. Furthermore, as Myrttinen & Schulz discuss, it is patriarchal mechanisms that are being used to both prevent men from getting help, and in the problematic ways that CRSV is often ‘treated’, referring to the need for men to engage in “re-masculinization”.
These patriarchal mechanisms were also apparent in the story of Shanna, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond; in El Jones words, “Over and over again we see the pattern of “humanizing the (usually) male predators and murderers of women while the achievements and life stories of their victims are ignored.” Men’s mental health is undeniably important, and it’s clear from this story that neglecting this pervasive issue has horrific consequences. However, in my everyday life, I usually only hear it championed by men as a ‘devil’s advocate’ type point when we’re discussing feminist ideas. Men’s mental health and care needs to be rooted in discussions of the larger systems at play.
Here are my questions (reiterated from above):
Who can be a victim? Who is seen as a politically neutral human being whose suffering is worthy of our care and sympathy?
How can we frame men’s mental health and care in ways that address patriarchal structures rather than reinforce them?
So many complex feelings around this week’s readings. I was scrolling on Instagram a couple nights ago when I came across a poem from someone named Lucas Jones, called “Boys are much softer than anyone thinks.” Here is an excerpt from the first half of the poem:
Boys mould to the box boys build/ And if the box is sharp and violence filled, then the soft and gentle in the boy gets killed/ And the boy gets mad and resents how he feels/ Then the box is a coffin/ Then the thing gets sealed/ And the boys we’re all copying leave us in their wills, an inherited anger/ And lacking in skills of emotional management/ The boys get billed with the debt of the trauma/ And forever it swills around in your bottle. Or pint. Or pills/ And metastasizes til the boy gets ill/ Then behaves like a prick to all of the girls/ And it is your damage to fix. Not hers. (Jones, 2024)
While this poem is not discussing SVAMB in conflict settings, is focused on the build-up of male aggression, and reinforces the gender-binary view of sexual violence as something men do against women, I think there are some valuable overarching themes that connect to our readings.
The hegemonic gender roles that the patriarchy, and in turn the institutions and people that participate in patriarchy, impose on men restricts their expression of their emotion and vulnerability. In Schulz’s “ethical violence” reading, male survivors of sexual violence in Northern Uganda experience multilayered, continuous layers of neglect and abandonment from their community and institutions that are supposed to help them in crises (Schulz, 2018, pg. 584). From laws that don’t include men/boys as victims in definition of rape, to avoiding reporting to your abusers that make up the current government, to being turned away by the UHCR, a constant thread is that men are not encouraged to speak up about sexual violence (and are often ignored or silenced if they do). At the same time, “masculinity nostalgia” that brings a return to men enjoying benefits of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy after being “emasculated” is a common desire for male survivors of sexual violence (Myrttinen et al., 2023, pg. 401). The very same system (patriarchy) which is denying men the full freedom to express and asserts violence on them, is the system in which some of their desired healing takes place, because of how ingrained gender roles are in identity.
The alternative to reinforcing these roles–men as the only head of the household, economic breadwinners, or the “strong, powerful ones” (aka not feminine, which is always equated with weakness) is to explore alternative masculinities. Jones mentions this in the second half of his poem. He encourages men and boys not to harm others, to ask for help, be open about their fears and anxieties, for the people listening to them to empathize, and for boys to grow. While alternative masculinities are being explored by some mens’ sexual violence survivors groups (ex. Okwera in Men of Courage, Men of Hope), there is also the saddening reality that SVAMB groups are often competing with VAWG groups for funding. How do we get funders not to see VAWG, diverse SOGIESC, and SVAMB as groups in competition for funding from one pot?
And then a whole different slew of questions arise from the Fraser and Jones articles: who do we learn more about in cases of violence – the abuser or victim/survivor (particularly when some people may be both)? How do intersections of race, sexuality, economic status, religion, and other identities determine who receives empathy, and who receives blame? Who gets understanding in their violent acts?
It seems that Alyssa’s reflection on this week’s readings start off the same way and I will echo her words, but patriarchy does seem to harm everyone. The standards and expectations that patriarchies set across various societies harm anyone regardless of how they identify or present. The readings for this week dive into this problem particularly as to how these socially constructed expectations harm men in the present. Men that are unable to fit into these expectations set upon them due to their gender identity in patriarchal societies end up suffering and struggling in similar ways that anyone else does in these societies. Even though men are more likely to succeed in patriarchal societies due to society being built by them and for them, these societies also attach certain characteristics or values which define what they view as a “man”. Once men do not fit into these patriarchal labels, they suffer in several ways which our readings covered. Men who cannot conform to unattainable models and standards of masculinity harms their well-being and sense of self-worth (Brun, 2021). One man that was interviewed mentioned that the fact that it got so difficult to provide for his family (particularly women in his family) made him lose his fiancée and he truly feels that his own mother thinks less of him as a result (Brun, 2021).
Men being viewed as a greater threat, especially in conflict zones, means that many of them get targeted armed attacks more than others which increases their risk of injury or death due to conflict (Brun, 2021). This is another example as to how men are harmed by patriarchal standards. Since the patriarchy expects men to be aggressive, manly, masculine, more violent, they are then seen as a greater threat during conflict as they are seen as those most capable of being violent.
On the other hand, it was disturbing to read that in recent times, during Desmond’s case, most media focused on the killer’s life and his struggles. No one seemed to extend the same level of empathy towards the victims that tragically lost their lives. Another article talked about how Black women, especially in Canada, are never talked about or covered in media, and Desmond’s case was no exception. I would imagine that we would have learned from history, where even the Canadian woman of African origin (Viola Desmond)’s story is barely known by Canadians even though she is on the $10 CAD banknote. One would imagine that this issue would not still exist today the same way it did in the past.
My reflection and the themes of this week lead me to develop these questions around vulnerability, which are: How much does a man’s upbringing and socialization when they were young influence their attitude towards vulnerability in society? Would the only way to adequately address men’s vulnerability be to raise them when they are in their early years to reject traditional patriarchal views on masculinity? I originally would say yes but I fear that there are so many factors in play across societies that the answer is not this simple.
In discussions of masculinity, I find it noteworthy how the qualities of traditionally valued—resilience, toughness, and fortitude—can also make men vulnerable in times of war and conflict. Masculine ideals of strength place men, especially in conflict zones, in heightened physical and psychological danger. This paradox reveals how men are also bound by systemic gender expectations, facing violence, trauma, and social pressure to fulfill the protector role, often at great personal risk.
Brun’s article highlights that men and boys face distinct threats in crisis situations, often becoming primary targets for armed attacks. In many conflict contexts, men are at greater risk of arrest, torture, and killing. The notion that armed forces often direct their aggression towards opposition leaders raises important questions about the intersections of power and vulnerability. While power is typically viewed as a dominant or positive attribute, possessing power, such as being a leader of an armed group or opposition force, can actually place individuals at greater risk of being targeted in violent contexts. In addition, neutrality is rarely an option, as men are pressured to join armed groups and face suspicion from both sides if they refuse, leaving them with no safe choices.
Men’s vulnerability in these contexts is exacerbated by societal expectations to act as protectors and providers for their families, exposing them to psychological distress, feelings of powerlessness, and social judgment for perceived failures. The expectation to be the guardians in times of crisis leads to feelings of inadequacy and suppressed emotions, contributing to mental health struggles that can escalate into household violence. When combined with restricted mobility and social stigma, their inability to fulfill these roles deepens their sense of helplessness and frustration. The readings prompt me to think about the need for a broader understanding of masculinity—one that allows for emotional expression and acknowledges the mental health struggles many men face.
This situation reflects Schulz’s concept of “ethical loneliness,” a profound sense of abandonment that survivors feel when institutions fail to respond adequately to their trauma. Male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, for example, often face silence around their experiences, as even support processes tend to overlook them. This lack of institutional support intensifies their trauma and deepens isolation, ultimately denying male survivors the opportunity to fully express and process their experiences. The silence surrounding their experiences is a reminder of the societal stigma that continues to overshadow their trauma, which highlights the importance of the role of institutions in providing support that recognizes the unique struggles of male survivors.
The article from the Halifax Examiner identifies another systemic issue: violence against Black women is often normalized and obscured by a focus on issues affecting Black men, such as police brutality and mass incarceration. This leads to systemic neglect of the struggles of Black women and reinforces expectations that they tolerate such treatment. Consequently, this dynamic illustrates an intersectional vulnerability where both gender and race contribute to the disregard of violence against Black women in marginalized communities.
Myrttinen and Schulz critique the discourse on sexual violence against men and boys for sometimes reinforcing traditional masculine ideals rather than challenging them. They note that some male survivors prefer to return to pre-conflict gender dynamics rooted in patriarchy, which risks marginalizing diverse gender identities by confining solutions to a framework focused on heteronormative masculinity.
Question:
How can we create a cohesive response to gender-based violence that effectively addresses the needs of men, women, and gender-diverse individuals?
This week’s readings were difficult and moving (as has been the case for many of these weeks so perhaps this isn’t surprising anymore). I loved the Shulz piece, and found myself particularly drawn to Okwera’s story. I’m making this about me, but it really did break my heart to think that just as he felt ready to broach sharing his story, 12 years after the fact, the systems supposedly in place to respond to harm completely and utterly failed him (a system failing is also unsurprising, but still). Reading about the timeline here has brought me back to my reflections from last week about time, and our inability to spend the time necessary with harm to meaningfully see and address it. 12 years is a long time. It’s an even longer time to be alone with something. And yet, it’s also a really short amount of time– short enough to be forgotten in legal memory, and to be excluded from a transitional process’s legal mandates.
Schulz’s discussion on compounded silences really stuck with me, and particularly the parts of ethical loneliness that focus on the denial of hearing someone’s testimony, including Stauffer’s commentary on people who “emerge from [that] injustice only to find that the surrounding world will not listen to or cannot properly hear their testimony”. To me, the word loneliness is incredibly powerful, and I don’t even think I can really articulate the affect that “ethical loneliness” has had for me. The abandonment of someone in a time of hurt is truly disturbing, and to me this truly puts the final nail in the coffin of the phrase “falling through the cracks” used to describe when systems don’t account for peoples’ experiences, as if structural abandonment isn’t a more accurate term– it’s giving “the banality of evil”.
The question for me then, is what is the antidote to ethical loneliness? How can people be seen, heard, and truly known in their experiences? Schulz offers commentary on this, but to me I think a lot of the answer lies in Ojeda’s concept of listening across harm that I wrote about a couple weeks ago. I really loved this concept, but I think after these readings I was reflecting on the difference between listening and truly hearing, and at the risk of being nitpicky and overly academic, I think I would remix Ojeda’s phrase to be: “hearing across harm”. I wonder what implications there are for adopting a model of care and hearing across harm in the face of ethical loneliness. The Myrtinnen and Shulz piece explored this through their focus on a relational approach, which I really liked, and want to think about more. I think that hearing across harm could be a helpful lens to addressing the tensions they describe in doing work that balances the need to incorporate men and boys in work with the need to recognize the specific experiences of women, girls, and gender diverse people. Especially in contexts where there is “friction” because there is a lot of fear about the scarcity of resources and attention, I think that listening across harm could be a tool to validate the experiences and priorities of survivors while still situating their experiences in the context of broader power dynamics. One of my takeaways here is that this work seems to require a fierce gentleness- there is attention to the specific concerns, fears, traumas, and hopes of individual survivors and affected communities, and a fierce commitment to advocacy, while also requiring a firm dedication to protecting advocacy from itself to avoid entrenching the systems that drive harm.
My questions for this week are:
How do we avoid “fetishizing” gender-based and sexual violence in our work?
How do we honour survivors’ choices and priorities when we feel as though they’re “setting the movement back”, or could ultimately reinforce the status quo? How do we navigate this tension between trauma-informed and agency driven care and dismantling harmful status quos?
A common piece of ‘criticism’ we I would receive when working in gender based violence education was “men get raped too”, intended to insinuate my work did not support male survivors. Ironically I ran a number of male-centric programs and sessions, but that’s not really the point of this anecdote. Why this phrase comes to mind is an idea which stuck out to me in the readings today; that when we bring a gendered lens to violence or sexual violence, women and men become pitted against each other. I found this to be an important and valuable example of ways in which the patriarchy harms everyone. Myrttinen and Schulz’s article considers how even in cases of attempting to develop work on sexual violence against men and boys, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic language and rhetoric are at risk of becoming part of the discussion, hindering progress and imposing further violence on communities. While the authors argue for inclusive, holistic programming which understands the intersectional and relational nature of gender, it’s not clear to me how we can actionably move towards this future.
We saw in the murders of Shanna, Aaliyah and Brenda Desmond, a crime committed by Lionel Desmond how systems of violence bleed into eachother creating a cycle of violence which hurts those who are the most vulnerable the most. Lionel Desmond’s experience with violence in Afghanistan was certainly traumatic for him. But this violence put his family in a violence situation which they had no control of or support during, and as Black women, Shanna, Aaliyah and Brenda faced social isolation which only heightened their risk of experiencing harm. Ultimately this system led to their lives being taken. This case and the variance in media coverage discussing it that we looked at really emphasized to me the confounding nature of the patriarchy. I think personally, I have had to recently come to terms with my own biases within the patriarchy. In this class For example, we have considered stereotypes which paint women as victims and men as protectors, in my life I’ve experienced this victim or submissive stereotype being applied to me and this has perpetrated harm in my life, and as a young woman today I’m also exposed to a lot of content online and in feminist circles which spout a ‘fuck all men’ rhetoric as a response to harm experienced at the hands of the patriarchy. While women deserve to feel rage and anger and to seek justice for violence and harm perpetrated by men and I believe women should support each other in these journey’s to justice, I have also been reckoning with the idea that in order to move forward, I also need to unlearn my own biases against masculinity. The patriarchy has coopted masculinity as a term synonymous with violence, aggression, and isolation, but this is not what masculinity is about, its what the patriarchy is about.
Today’s readings helped me to consider the ways patriarchy hurts us all, and to flesh out a better idea of how we can move forwards as communities even as so much violence and harm continues to be experienced and perpetrated.
Question
How can we use understandings of gender as relational as a tool moving towards a feminist future?
How can we simultaneously achieve goals of seeking a feminist means justice for survivors of violence, gain accountability from perpetrators, and dismantle systems which allow this violence to occur?
I went through the last week reflecting on what was said in our last class. One question raised by Judith kept coming back to me: “How do I perpetuate micro-violences in my own body and to those around me?” This question reframed the question posed in the first week by Elena: “Where is war?”
As I went through the week, I realized that war, in the micro scale, is visible on my body. (I feel a little dramatic saying this, but then I listened to the podcast wherein Karen Jones compared her father’s war to her own.) Somehow this illustrated internalized misogyny better to me than many of the other ways I have tried to understand it. After all, that is part of the insidiousness of internalizing these structures: they’re hard to recognize.
I think certain patterns of thinking were clearer to me this week because I was already questioning my internalized misogyny from a new framework. For example, I work at a centre that supports families going through separation. We are particularly attentive to family violence, and especially given the fact that family violence often increases around the time of separation. But I am more accustomed to discussing this issue with women. On Thursday, of the four cases of family violence I supported clients with, three of those seeking support were men. In one of the cases, I didn’t recognize that he had safety concerns at first. In fact, he brought it up in a way that he could have played it off as a joke had I not asked further.
So, in going through the readings this week, I already had certain questions running through my mind: how often do we miss men’s vulnerabilities because we have not accepted they exist? What are the social, structural, and personal barriers to acknowledging these vulnerabilities?
The Schultz article draws from the concept of “ethical loneliness” developed by Stauffer wherein ethical loneliness is described not only as the result of persons having been unjustly treated by humans and social structures, but also the failing to listen to survivors when they voice their experiences of injustice, resulting in a silencing or erasure. What makes matters more complicated is that there are ripple effects to “ethical loneliness.” The news articles showed a deadly example of this: the CBC article by Laura Fraser shone light on the systemic failures that former soldier Lionel Desmond experienced, while El Jones’ article explored the “double-erasure” of black women.
So aside from the questions I am already asking myself, this week, I am also asking,
How do we, on the micro and macro scale, perpetuate the silencing of those who have been unjustly treated, especially when it comes to those whose suffering we wouldn’t expect?
What a ✨JOURNEY✨ these readings were!
I will admit that discourses about masculinities usually frustrates me – not because I do not see its value, but because, like neuroscience and space politics, I am very glad that other people are experts in it so that I do not have to be. I often find it frustrating to be a woman in conversations about masculinity as the rest of this reflection reveals. Anyway, shockingly it turns out that discourses about masculinities are unavoidable because we are all living in them all the time. Who knew!?
Brun, Schulz and Jones knew. And despite my averseness to discourses about masculinities, every one of these readings felt personal. Brun’s discussion of men “caught in a spiral of fear” shrinking their social lives tugged at my heartstrings even after I had prickled at the statistic regarding men enduring greater risk of violence directly related to the conflict. “Yeah,” I thought, “but I wonder who is enduring a greater risk of violence indirectly related to the conflict.” But Brun’s discussion of men limiting movement and avoiding gatherings, remaining at home contrasted so sharply with my experience. Every time I have felt threatened by, endured, or been proximate to violence, I have sought other women. It is often how we survive. We make eye contact on crowded trains and dark streets, we hype each other up in the bathroom of the karaoke bar, we live communally to survive, we gossip to build collective knowledge, and on and on and on. This is not to say that women do not impose upon one another forms of ethical loneliness (or that are never perpetrators of violence against other women), but that the gender bias that often excludes women from exercising power also might protect us from being targeted as holders of power in a way that is not applicable to men.
I also thought I had things to say about the Fraser article – both of my grandfathers were veterans who struggled with textbook cases of PTSD – until I read El Jones’ piece. Now I have different things to say. My grandmother died in 2020 after a long ordeal with Alzheimers. The last time I saw her when she saw me back, we were sitting in her living room and she reached over to me, held both my hands, looked me in the eyes and said, “I have something for you, I really want you to have it and I think you’ll need it for the rest of your life.” Then she handed me “Miss Manners Guide To Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour,” and told me it was how she kept her husband pleased. This was a real shock from a woman whose obituary started, “for the first time in her adult life, the ferocious Barbara Alice Sarson has done something that she cannot tell anyone how to do better,”* and she WAS ferocious: the breadwinner for her entire marriage with a spectacular career of service, raised four kids and adopted four more, and had strength of character that would blow you away. Here she was, in her final moments of lucidity, advising her sixteen-year-old granddaughter on how to keep a man!
It’s taken me years (and many trips to my therapist) to come to the conclusions El Jones comes to her in piece. Barb was not giving me frivolous middle-school girl advice. She was desperately trying to explain to me how to survive for the rest of my life. She was giving me the gift of the wisdom she had. Last year, I was taking stock of life (as you do, I have found, more and more when you turn 26 – warning for the rest of you yet to get there) and realized that, as many generations back as I can count, every woman I am descended from on both sides of my family was in an abusive marriage by age 26. “I can think of all the women I know in my family who, if it were me, would tell me the same. ‘You made your bed,’ they would say, not because they didn’t love me, not because they were ignorant, not because they didn’t want me to be safe, but because that was the script they knew for survival” is one of the most impactful and resounding things I have ever read.
It also provides an avenue for a degree of hope. Their endurance, their survival, it is OUR gift. Now, I think of all the ways that my grandmothers would be disappointed in how I am squandering my youth away being unmarried and super committed to my ambitions and how their disappointment is a marker of their successes. They survived so they could be disappointed by my choices in the afterlife.
Discussion questions:
– What are the expectations of masculinity of how men use their communities? How do men find safety in one another?
– How do we change the way we tell our families’ stories? How do we change the way we tell our societies’ stories?
*I know it’s weird to like, shameless plug my grandmother’s obituary, but it contains some of the finest and most loving writing I have ever read, by her daughter who is an excellent poet and person: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/winnipeg-mb/barbara-sarson-9382179.
The readings for this week reminded me of a video I keep seeing on my timeline on social media. It is a YouTube video by Jubilee titled “Conservative Teens vs Liberal Parents | Middle Ground” in which, as the title suggests, conservative teens and liberal parents debate/argue/talk over each other about topics like whether the government has the right or not to tell people what to do with their bodies or being a LGBTQ+ ally and things like that. At one point in the video, when discussing bodily autonomy and the government, one of the male conservative teens says something along the lines of “men commit more suicide, most people who work in dangerous places are men, most people fighting war are men” and one liberal parent responds with “who set that system up?”. Clearly, as the readings by Myrttinen and Schulz suggest, there is a lot more nuance to this, particularly in contexts like Uganda and the LRA or Cameroon. Echoing what Alyssa said in her reflection, multiple truths can and do exist at the same time.
The topic of men and vulnerability particularly reminds me of my dad, who may or may not have experienced some type of abuse during his teen years. The reason why I say may or may not have, is because I don’t know what happened, my mom doesn’t what happened, even my grandparents parents don’t know what happened. My dad has only just sort of alluded to “something” happening and that it is a difficult topic for him. The article by Brun and the failure to address the vulnerability of men and boys I think pretty much explains my thoughts about that. And yet, at the same time I go back to the article El Jones where she explains the realities that Black women experience. Particularly in terms of domestic violence, I cannot stop thinking about the thousands of women in Mexico who have been murdered by their husbands or partners. I keep thinking about Gisele Pelicot and I think about Rebecca Cheptegei, the Olympic runner killed by her partner. I think about how there are stories of men who worked at Bletchley Park (the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during WWII that was a secret unitl the 1970’s) and because they were not part of army, and therefore did not have to wear a uniform, they felt guilt and shame for “not doing their part”, particularly when their kids were asked in school why were their dads not fighting. I keep thinking about how we tend to equate war as something masculine, without taking into account how women participate in war as well; how war is masculine and yet so little care is given to men who have experienced horrible things; how it is almost like a vicious circle.
Many thoughts this week.
1. What is the role of men in the making of a feminist future?
2. How can we dismantle a system that hurts men and boys, while also dealing with the fact that there are many men who do not want, and would not do anything, to dismantle said system?
Sidenote: the link to the Jubilee video I mentioned if anyone wants to watch it https://youtu.be/mVG2ZlpB8ek?si=-OX3h2U3tpRywO0I
I don’t fully agree with the concerns that bringing SVAMB into the WPS agenda would center the needs and experiences of men at the expense of women. SVAMB and VAGW is two sides of the same coin with the same underlying causes. To tackle systemic causes of sexual violence, both SVAMB and VAGW need to be addressed.
Myrttien and Schulz (2023) use the term “re-masculizing” to describe part of the healing process for survivors of SVAMB. The article criticizes this as reinforcing patricidal structures that romanticize the ideal of masculinity and what it means to be a man. Making space for SVAMB in the WPS agenda, and post-conflict transitional justice processes needs to not just include space for male survivors to come forward and seek support, but also an acknowledgement of underlying structural gendered norms and hierarchies. Processes of ethical Silencing (Schulz, 2018) also reinforce patricidal structures. I don’t see how we can exclude men from sexual violence discussions without reinforcing gender hierarchies that see men as only perpetrators and women as victims. If we want a true feminist future, we must create space for masculinity to be able to be associated with vulnerability.
I have more thoughts but I am having trouble collecting them and I am already past the submission time so I will just end with my question,
Do we have to do away with masculinity entirely, or can we re-imagine a feminist future version of masculinity?
Can the healing processes for survivors of SVAMB also address gender anxiety?