The Issue of Men

Issue 56, March 2013

BROAD A Feminist & & Social SocialJustice JusticeMagazine Magazine

Table of Contents

The Issue of Men

Cover Art: Magnetics by Johnny Beaver

A feminist is a person who answers “yes” to the question, “Are women human?” Feminism is not about whether women are better than, worse than or identical with men. And it’s certainly not about trading personal liberty--abortion, divorce, sexual self-expression-for social protection as wives and mothers, as pro-life feminists propose. It’s about justice, fairness, and access to the

BROAD

range of human experience. It’s about women consulting their own well-being and being judged as individuals rather than as members of a class with one personality, one social function, one road to happiness. It’s about women having intrinsic value as persons rather than contingent value as a means to an end for others: fetuses, children, the “family,” men. ~ Katha Pollitt

broad | brÔd | adjective 1 having an ample distance from side to side; wide 2 covering a large number and wide scope of subjects or areas: a broad range of experience 3 having or incorporating a wide range of meanings 4 including or coming from many people of many kinds 5 general without detail 6 (of a regional accent) very noticeable and strong 7 full, complete, clear, bright; she was attacked in broad daylight noun (informal) a woman.

broad | brÔd |

slang a promiscuous woman

phrases broad in the beam: with wide hips or large buttocks in broad daylight: during the day, when it is light, and surprising for this reason have broad shoulders: ability to cope with unpleasant responsibilities or to accept criticism City of broad shoulders: Chicago synonyms see: wide, extensive, ample, vast, liberal, open, all-embracing antonyms see: narrow, constricted, limited, subtle, slight, closed see also broadside (n.) historical: a common form of printed material, especially for poetry

Broad’s mission is connectartists, the WSGS program Our witheditorial communities of students, communities ofto scholars, and activists. mission is to provoke faculty, and staff at Loyola and beyond, continuing and extending the program’s thought and debate in an open forum characterized by respect and civility. mission. We provide space and support for a variety of voices while bridging communities of scholars, artists, and activists. Our editorial mission is to provoke thought and debate in an open forum characterized by respect and civility.

WSGS Mission: Founded in 1979, Loyola’s Women’s Studies Program is the first women’s studies program at a Mission: Jesuit institution and has served as a model for women’s studies WSGS programs at other Jesuit and Catholic universities. Our mission is to introduce

Founded in to 1979, Loyola’s Women’sacross Studies is the studies students feminist scholarship theProgram disciplines andfirst thewomen’s professional schools; program at a Jesuit institution and has served as a model for women’s studies to provide innovative, challenging, and thoughtful approaches to learning; and to programs atsocial other justice.

Jesuit and Catholic universities. Our mission is to introduce promote students to feminist scholarship across the disciplines and the professional schools; to provide innovative, challenging, and thoughtful approaches to learning; and to promote social justice.

Activism and Academia: This special themed issue on Activism & Academia explores: how activism and academia are related, whether or notYthey are compatible, what it means to The Issue of Men be a part of the academy, what types of education are lacking from academic

This issue explores thetotopics of masculinities, privilege, rights,relates to disciplines, access education and rights tomale, education, howmen’s academia patriarchy, normative ideals male behavior, heteronormativity, how at race, the real world, if there is aofdisconnect between universities andand society large, class, orientation affect or intersect identities.

Look forfor the andand howsexual we can make what we learn matter.with Lookmale for the [A&A] symbol [IM] symbol for contributions contributions on our theme!on our theme!

BROAD People: BROAD People: Karolyne Carloss

Abi Wilberding

Editor

Editor

Table of Contents

|

BROAD Mission: Broad’s mission is to connect the WSGS program with communities of students, faculty, and staff Mission: at Loyola and beyond, continuing and extending the program’s BROAD mission. We provide space and support for a variety of voices while bridging

Jenn Miller Editor in Chief

Brandie Madrid Consulting Editor

Julia DeLuca

WSGS/WLA/Gannon Coordinator

Natalie Beck

Archives & Website Coordinator

J. Curtis Main Consulting Editor

CONTENTS FROM YOUR EDITOR VISITING EDITOR Jason Lemberg EMBRACING CHAOS Perspectives (Universes)

by Jason Lemberg and Tim Brauhn

PEOPLE TELLING STORIES

Alexandra

by Bryce Parsons-Twesten

BROADSIDE Heart of Gold

by Peter Browne

BOOKMARK HERE 2666

by Roberto Bolaño

[IM] Dual Perspectives: Helpless Together

by Adam Gura

WLA RE-ANIMATED 1960: Athletics Basketball BROADSIDE disciplining and dethroning

by Janna Payne

QUOTE CORNER Tim’M T. West QUEER THOUGHTS The Destroying of Diderot’s Ring

by Emma Steiber

[IM] You Know I’m Gonna be Like You

by Bryan George

WORDS ARE USELESS Machos

by Abraham Velazquez Tello

[IM] Packaging the Package: A Feminist Critique of Masculinity in Magic Mike

by Nina Berman

BROADSIDE More

by Matt Osborn

MADADS The Evolution of the Male Body in Advertising: The Way of Women or

Still Protected by Male Privilege?

by Natalie Beck

[IM] Male Privilege???

by Dexter

WORDS ARE USELESS Dredge, Magnetics, Patriotism, and The Mariner

by Johnny Beaver

[IM]

Male Feminist Motives: What was Tuthmosis Talking About?

by Katie Christenson

BROADSIDE Where my Fists Land and Broken Eggs

by Alex Layman

MIDDLE EASTERN MUSINGS Men in Our Lives

by Abeer Allan

WORDS ARE USELESS David, Salt of the Earth, and Stoic Scholar

by Gayle Carloss

EX BIBLIOTHECIS

by Jane P. Currie

Library Science and Serendipity

SUBTLE SEX(ISMS) Narrate. Narrativize. Re-narrativize.

by Karolyne Carloss

[IM] Is Masculinity Changing?

by Sarah Fazal

EDUCATED GUESS Man

by Abi Wilberding

FEMINIST FIRES Tim’M T. West [IM] Rediscovering Fatherhood: An Existential Crisis in Understanding Masculinity

QUOTE CORNER Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education BROADSIDE What Male Privilege Did to Me

by Grace Trujillo

NEGOTIATING SPACE Nicole Carrasco WORDS ARE USELESS Untitled

by Nick Luevano

Table of Contents

by Brock Bahler

CONTENTScontinued [IM] Masculinities and bell hooks

by Krista

QUOTE CORNER Kurt Cobain ALUM ALERT Cait Rogan CONTRIBUTOR GUIDELINES

BROAD A Feminist & & Social SocialJustice JusticeMagazine Magazine

Call for Editorial Team Members!

If you want to...

network, learn technical & design skills, Gain leadership experience, manage a team work with diverse groups, connect with others, share your voice, earn class credit Apply today!

BROAD Magazine is currently accepting applications for a number of leadership positions for the 2013-2014 school year, including the position of Editor in Chief.

The Editorial Team will work together and independently on all aspects of magazine production. We are hoping the BROAD team will represent a broad range of identities; diverse identities of all kinds are especially encouraged to apply.

Technological skills, feminist leadership, Project coordination & organizing, creativity, communications & marketing, writing & Grammar, critical thinking, commitment to feminism To apply: Please email a cover letter, resume, three references, and an example of your creativity and/or commitment to feminism/social justice to jmiller13@luc.edu & jmain@luc.edu for consideration.

Click here for more information!

[LQ]

Table of Contents

Desired Qualifications:

From Your Editor

Dear Readers, I first began dating males in my early teens, an age when most adolescent boys are somewhere in the process of developing into adult men.

At the time, I had this theory, that I found quite revelational, by the way, that the men could be distinguished from the boys by their hands. I had this idea of what a man’s hands looked like - big, rough, calloused, strong - as opposed to a boy’s hands, which would look more similar to my own or those of any young person - smaller, softer, less worn than a man’s hands.

I grew up in a household of three women (my mom, my sister, and me) and one very masculineidentified male of the house, my father. My Dad was, and still is, the picture of normative masculinity: he is 6 foot 1, has broad shoulders, muscular arms, a deep voice, knows how to fix just about anything (and if not, he’ll figure it out), drinks Miller and Budweiser, has an affinity for cars, is pretty athletic and watches sports, has a woodsy smell, sometimes grows a beard, is clean but doesn’t spend too much time on

Basically, my Dad was manly and he was tough.

These were hard facts that I knew about him. And although I never saw my Dad be violent in any way, like many kids of my generation, I would often brag to my friends that my Dad could beat up their Dad. To this day, I think that, in most cases, he could.

All of this is to say - by looking at my Dad’s hands, you could definitely tell he was a man.

Oftentimes, when we were sitting together, he would take my hand in his and lovingly caress the back of my small hand with his huge thumb.

I could feel the coarseness and weatheredness of it, the hard callouses from years of work in the automotive industry, the immense enormity and strength of but one digit, bigger than two of my fingers. His hands were often dirty from work outside, the creases of his palms and fingers lined with oil and grease; he would have to wash them vigorously with a special kind of soap after a day’s work building and repairing cars.

As my Dad and I both grew older, I came to know and understand him in different ways, and I think that he changed and grew as a person as well. He was no longer just a stereotypical “great dad” figure. He became more in touch with his emotions. One of the only times I saw him cry when I was younger was when I went through my first real break-up. He came into my room and held me and we cried together. Now, he seems more in touch with his emotions; he cries pretty much anytime I write him a card for his birthday or Father’s Day. He talks to me about the ups and downs of his relationships (he and my mom are now divorced), about the books he’s reading, and mostly, about the creative outlet he has found for himself in getting his old rock band back together.

He lets me see his more vulnerable sides. He shows an interest in women’s issues, and things I am passionate about.

It makes me wonder: was my father always this way, with masculine and feminine qualities? Was I just, as a young person, too naiive to realize it?

Or, when he was younger, did he feel a certain pressure to be more “masculine?” To provide for and protect his family? A pressure that perhaps is not so stringent today. And if so, do these pressures to conform to masculinity always begin to subside with age? Or did my father just learn from experience that it was okay to reveal this side of himself? To allow his daughter to see that, although he can be tough and manly, he is also sensitive and vulnerable? Is he, simply, more in touch with his humanity?

This brings me back to my original theory: that a man and a boy can be differentiated by the feel and appearance of their hands. It’s a little preposterous to me, now, since one’s hands are different based on the type of work one does or hygiene one maintains. But, what I didn’t know at the time of first formulating this somewhat silly theory, is that the word “man” actually comes from “hand” or “by hand.” That’s what this root word means. Like mano in Spanish means hand.

Words like manual, manuscript, manufacture, manicure - they are all derivative from hand.

Thus, men are, in the most literal sense, defined by their hands.

My father’s hands shaped my first experiences with and perceptions of masculinity, and served as a basis for comparison. As you will see in this issue, this is a common occurrence, not necessarily specifically related to hands, but to fathers. Our fathers, or father figures, or lack of a father figure, or the act of becoming a father, teaches us about what it means to be a man. And although I don’t believe in the necessity of gender binaries, the necessity of fathers, the necessity of these definitions, I think it is certainly interesting to see how our contributors negotiate these aspects of themselves or the men in their lives and come to understand what masculinity is and how it can be shaped, stretched, and enhanced.

Enjoy, jenn

Table of Contents

personal hygiene, was the primary breadwinner and manager of household finances, never cried, wasn’t interested in bookish activities, but preferred doing things with his hands, loves red meat, rarely cooked, was intimidating to anyone interested in dating me, likes rock music ...I could go on and on.

Visiting Editor

Jason Lemberg About Jason:

Jason Lemberg is a restless young man, a few months away from entering his thirties.

He is the father of a 19 month-old son and happily married to his mystical wife Amy. He met Amy while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Jason’s Peace Corps service was the catapult into the field of education and community development.

As a PCV, he worked at the school in a village on the north shore of Lake IssykKul. His two years in Peace Corps laid the foundation of his dedication to community development and birthed his passion in the power of learning and education. Upon returning from Kyrgyzstan, Jason entered Loyola University Chicago’s Cultural and Educational Policy Studies program. In December 2011, he completed his Masters of Education. Earlier in the summer of 2011, Jason began working for Housing Opportunities for Women (HOW) as a Youth Specialist. At HOW Jason works with youth and families on multiple levels of social, emotional, academic, intellectual, and community building. In addition to his work at HOW, Jason helped to launch the Chicago branch of Soccer Without Borders (SWB) in the summer of 2012. SWB-Chicago uses soccer as a vehicle for positive change, providing under-served refugee youth a toolkit to overcome obstacles to growth, inclusion and personal success.

Outside of work and education, Jason is an avid reader, writer, and lover of coffee. He dreams of a day when he could ride his bike safely to wherever he needed to go (mainly, the zoo and places that serve coffee). His upbringing was full of the outdoors and sports and he still loves to play any variety of sports.

As his family grows, he is looking forward to countless days of ball fields and parks and forgetting about the world around him.

Jason came to BROAD in October, 2012. He was interested in finding a place to explore his creative pursuits and loved the uniqueness of BROAD. Since becoming a father he has experienced and witnessed men very differently. The role of fathers has undergone a grand shift in the past few generations. Fatherhood is ever-evolving, though there are still many folks (both men and women) stuck in outdated perspectives on the the role of fathers. In the coming years, he hopes to be a driving force in highlighting the masculinity of involved fatherhood and to help change the way men respond with their femininity.

BROAD A Feminist & Social Justice Magazinee

Seeking submissions on the topics of: Social class and class identity, including the working class, the middle class, the working poor, etc; global definitions and conceptions of poverty and what it means to “live in poverty�; poverty alleviation; systems of wealth and power; globalization; consumerism; capitalism; socialism; marxist theory; and wealth accumulation and distribution.

Send your poetry, artwork, and reflections to broad.luc@gmail.com by April 12th

Table of Contents

Class and Power

by Jsaon Lemberg

Embracing Chaos Catching Words in the Wind

Perspectives (Universes)

By Jason Lemberg and Tim Brauhn At first, only a few understood what was happening.

You’re staring into the end of things right now.

The point where things slow to a crawl and there is nothing that can be done in the time remaining. Looks a bit underwhelming, doesn’t it?

Yeah, it does. I anticipated some kind of vast stretching of star-lights, or a great whooshing noise.

In space, there is no sound.

Yes of course. Or at least the utter devastation of a supernova or environmental degradation or a nuclear war or something. This is all just so... bland. Is this color grey?

Table of Contents

I’d call it more of a grey-pink. Not surprising the colors in a paint set together and they’ll do that it seems to shift as you stare at it - physics that. doesn’t mean much of anything right now.

Dealing with some pretty intense pressure here.

Ah. Well, that kills. All that’s left is this big sphere Oh! I wanted to mention: You talked about not of the leftovers. seeing “devastation”.

Well, consider that Earth, And they’re slowly Universes run out of gases. shrinking away, too. Also, the only baseline that you’d have for end-ofit’s not exactly a sphere.

Problems with subatomic times destruction, has What you’re looking at is a fission eventually produce been gone for some time toroid, to be precise. It’s a now, wiped out by the instabilities that cause stars big solid ring with nothing red supergiantification of around it. In time, it WILL to black out in seconds.

Sol. It wouldn’t fucking collapse to form a sphere. matter if it was still No use flying over to the In an infinitely-large or viable, anyway. You’d other side of it, though. It essentially infinitely-large be experiencing almost all looks the same. In time, the same things as you this space will become system, you’re going to would from this vantage invisible to the naked eye, have some issues. point. Consider that all then to a microscope (if we the remaining light in had one), then it’ll fizzle the...everything...is very, very close to us now. It away. would take the same amount of time to register in whatever telescopes you still had left on the And we’ll be left with a tiny point of light? planet.

Maybe. Not entirely certain.

So this is all the light that’s left? Seems diffused, You mean you haven’t seen it happen yourself? like that greyness is a great balancing of the remnant of a remnant of the spectrum.

Nope. Think about it - if I had, I wouldn’t still be here to walk you through the process, would I? Good way of looking at it, honestly. Best explanation I’ve heard so far. Universes run I suppose not. out of gases. Problems with subatomic fission eventually produce instabilities that cause stars My best guess is that it’ll be less a tiny point of to black out in seconds. In an infinitely-large, or light as it will be a wavering, faintly-lit space. essentially infinitely-large system, you’re going Kind of a like a candle’s flame, but out of focus. to have some issues. But yeah, what is left is all spaced out into this nebulous shit. Hence, Sounds kind of nice. Wait - what did you mean we can still see something. Just nothing of by mine being the best explanation that you’ve consequence. heard? You’ve heard others? Like, other people have been to this point with you, to see the What happened to all the matter? Planets, dust, ending? gas, dark energy or whatever we were always searching for?

Erm, I probably didn’t mean to add that much detail... But yes, there have been others. Lots, in Oh, it’s here. Again, what’s left of it. You always fact. They come here, check out the grey, ask a did have problems separating light from matter. few questions, yadda yadda yadda...

They’re both energy - interchangeable - so the greyness around you is the same substance as the Are they like me? remaining light. Just a big fucking mess. Mix all

Not always. Some start crying immediately. Others go all stony. There are some that try to trick-question me into revealing some grand secret of everything. Like I know shit. You’ve been one of the boring ones.

Fuck you!

Some start crying immediately. Others go all stony. There are some that try to trick-question me into revealing some grand secret of everything. Like I know shit. You’ve been one of the boring ones.

No, I mean boring in the sense that your presence here is...a presence. You’re observing. Asking questions, sure, but not trying to find an answer. There is no answer at this point.

Ah. My apologies. So where do we go from here?

Can I “go back”? Can’t honestly remember how I got here, come to think of it.

just saying that your end here is at least going to be complete. No idea what happens to you out in the forest.

Still, I’d prefer to take my chances back there.

That’s what they all say.

Fine, just imagine that you never showed up here, and you ought to be free to return.

Hey, before I go...I don’t know, thanks for showing me all this, I guess. It was really interesting.

No worries, dude. Best of luck out there. Look me up again if you ever make it this far.

Not surprising. Witnessing the point in time where even saying “point in time” is meaningless seems to be an ex nihilo participatory event.

Will do. Best!

How did you get here, then?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That’s one of those questions that wouldn’t even matter if I gave it to you with a diagram.

Then, no one had a choice. You accepted the truth and became an intangible or you were lost to grey-pink.

Fair enough. So can I go back now? Not sure that I care to stick around for the end of the end.

“Back” for you, in this case, is a warm crag between two large redrock boulders in Gunnison County, Colorado. In case you forgot, you felt it useful toJesus Christ the beer!

Yeah, beer. If you want to call it that. You knew that brewing with those plants could produce intense euphoria and visions. Not only did you drink too much, but you felt that hiking into the wilderness without water, dehydrated from the alcohol, was a grand idea. And then you decided to take a “vision nap”. And now you’re all fucked up, talking to a disembodied voice at the end of existence. You wanna go back, fine by me. I’m

poof

Have you ever read the Sneetches?

Seuss?

Yeah.

I think so. My parents probably used to read it to me. Why do you ask?

Just letting my mind wander. Not sure why I remember that book, but it’s one of those tangibles that became intangible. I wonder, sometimes, what it would be like to return.

To return home?

To return anywhere. Like time travel, but without all those ridiculous old machines they created in

stories and movies. My father loved those stories; what they used to call “science fiction.” He loved imagining the world different than what it was. I think it was an escape for him. It was a way see the world beyond what he was living. He lived a great life and was an amazing father, but he also spent time in his head imagining realities not of his reality. He wanted more than what he could see and feel. Unfortunately, his only conceptions of what could be were stuck in distortions created by the movies and books of “science fiction”.

reveal a light that lit all those around him. Other days, the cold of night would freeze his being and turn him bitter towards all, including those like him. When physics are involved, there’s only so much you are capable of becoming. He tried to find comfort in us, his family, and be present when he could. He tried to hide the pain of his ignorance, but we felt his pain and anger with the world around him. He sometimes liked to believe he could see through the pressures of the world around him, but he was far from immune. The world took a heavy toll on him.

You think your father would have had any way of wrapping his mind around what we are now?

What was he angry with?

We’ve got eternity. Our memories keep us tethered to what we once were, but we need to embrace what we’ve become, where we exist.

Time and distance, size and movement; they are myths of a species that lost perspective on all of them.

Yeah. I remember when people still had the ability to move between the tangible and intangible. There was still a belief in the senses. But, Because you’re going I mean...what about those people? There were people to tell me a story about who made the tangible a your father and who place of pure immersion. All that shit people loved: beer, he was, but you feel sex, rivers, babies, love, its worth less than the pandas, noodles, novels, hugs, flowers...people found length of its telling. The a way to settle between the intangible, the only tangible and intangible and create some pretty fucking reality that matters - and amazing things.

should have only ever mattered - is, in your perspective here, only of worth if it can be of a determined length.

That place was the shift that got us here. A lot of people were able to find their way there/here, but so many more were corrupted by the expectations of the world around them. I’m not sure my father ever found a comfortable place to reside. He often felt the pull, but spent most of his life like a planet in rotation. Some days the warmth of the sun would warm his soul and

Why does that matter?

Because you’re going to tell me a story about your father and who he was, but you feel its worth is less than the length of its telling. The intangible, the only reality that matters - and should have only ever mattered is, in your perspective here, only of worth if it can be of a determined length.

If I have one task in our eternal journey, it’s to wipe clean the distortion of time and perspective from your genetic memory.

I guess that’s true. It’s hard to separate the linear path of memories and the chaos of reality. It took a lot for us to get here, but I’ve got a lot of my father in me. Especially the part that has a hard time letting go of memories and people. I want

Table of Contents

No. I don’t think many people could. During those last days, there was so much information and images being thrown around that it was a struggle to balance originality and what the world was trying to convince you to believe.

I’m not entirely sure. That might not be a short answer.

to believe that our time, though insignificant in scale, is honored for the beauty of our intangibles.

We really did have gorgeous souls; millions of people with lights of compassion, love, and unconditional friendship.

We were also obsessed with tangibles and spent most of our time believing we were more than we really were.

Remember the dinosaurs?

Yeah, my father loved them.

My father had a hard time separating greed, hate, and ignorance from their counterparts of of altruism, love, and empathy...He was constrained by the tangible world in which he lived. He knew there was more; he felt what we are, but he never let himself free of the response.

They were huge; dwarfing so many of the species that ever existed on earth.

To so many, though, they mattered little. Humans erected buildings and transportation thousands of times the size of one dinosaur. To so many, size and scale were distorted. The tangible world was one that had coffee, devastation, billboards, and iPhones. They existed alongside each other, contributing and feeding off their mutual need to exist. But they were tangible. Thus, they were impermanent. “these are only removable things...”

You, me, anyone. I don’t know. The songs - all songs are memories; intangibles. I didn’t choose to make them that way, but I want to keep them that way.

You think your father had enough perspective to see music that way?

Maybe. He wasn’t always able to split emotions from experience. My father had a hard time separating greed, hate, and ignorance from their counterparts of altruism, love, and empathy.

He knew they were necessary counterparts; bridges between the internal and external that kept balance and order to life on earth. But he was never able to see past his own experiences because he was never able to conquer his own emotions. He tried his entire life to challenge the truth he didn’t want to believe. History told him one thing and his belief in the unreal gave him hope for another. But he lacked perspective.

He was constrained by the tangible world in which he lived. He knew there was more; he felt what we are, but he never let himself free of the response. He just couldn’t let it be.

Huh? Nothing, just a song my father used to sing.

Actually, he never sang any full song. He sang parts of songs. He was horrible with song lyrics, even though he loved them. He used to walk around singing this one line, over and over with a faux accent that he thought made his singing voice sound better. It wasn’t until I got older that I actually looked up the song and listened to it in its entirety.

What song was it?

It doesn’t matter.

To whom?

No one would have been able. No one ever was. I know you and I have talked a lot about the impermanence of the life our parents led and the distorted comfort we had in time and space.

Nonetheless, if it weren’t for their existence - the existence of things your father believed in - we wouldn’t be what we are now. We are what we are because we accepted the detachment. Or maybe we are what we are because we were willing to change our perspective.

If we were able to, wouldn’t others have been able to as well? Would there not be others who are what we have become?

People Telling Stories peopletellingstories.tumblr.com

By Bryce Parsons-Twesten It happened when I worked overnight. There was this guy, and there were a couple friends with him, I guess, and they got pretty wasted. They had been drinking beer the whole night, and he came here wasted already, so he could barely talk. He was holding my hand once in awhile, and he proposed to me like three times, and I kept answering that I’m married, engaged, blah blah blah. Then finally, his friends leave, and he stayed here, so he proposed to me one more time and he asked if he could take me home, and I say, “No, I’m still at work,” so he says, “Yeah, it’s so bad!” He paid, and he left. In five minutes, he’s back, and he says, “Sorry babe, I forgot to use the restroom.” I say, “Go ahead.” So he went to the restroom and then on his way back, I had my back to him, and he grabs me, lifts me up, and he starts yelling, “I’m taking you with me!” and he’s walking out of the freaking place. And at that time I was working with another male server and when he saw that, he went running after this guy. He grabbed him and said, “Put her back right now!” So the guy left me here and they had kind of a fight, but it wasn’t that bad. Basically they were talking shit to each other, and the guy left. He never came back. I guess he won’t even remember what happened, so he wouldn’t remember he proposed to me like five times.

Table of Contents

Alexandra

Broadside Expressions in Poetry via Street Literature Style

Heart of Gold I look for meaning in everything

by Peter Browne

I’m in love with everyone

tell me your darkest secrets

I’m a lost pilot

show me your tattoos and scars

I’m a lover, I’m at a loss for words

I have a gaping hole in my heart, I’m always after the last laugh

I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid of getting older, I’m afraid of the time getting away I look for approval from everyone I have a need to please I’ve got issues, but hey who doesn’t?

Blame your father blame your lover blame the president

or the next big thing Sometimes my heart feels like it’s going to burst spend the nest egg, howl at the moon there’s nothing purer than my pen and paper and everything else

I’m one card short of a full deck

I’v always been different, a round peg in a square hole

I’m a popsicle on the pavement

Sometimes I drink to forget

I’m a rusty box of tools

I’m nobody’s trophy wife

I’m up I’m down I’m never dull

I like first dates, I like a good story

Sometimes I can’t sleep I’m so scared I’m going to screw it all up

Sometimes I still feel like an 18 year old clutching my fake ID

Sometimes I want to dream it all away

sometimes I don’t know how to slow down

Glamour me like a vampire

sometimes I don’t want to anymore Peter Browne is an artist, filmmaker, and actor from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has lived in Chicago, Italy, and Amseterdam, but currently resides in his hometown. He will be making his way back to Chicago to pursue his dreams of becoming a writer this summer.

First Published:

Bookmark Here

2004

Current Publisher: Picador

2666

Pages: MSRP: $18.00

Genre: Fiction

Topics:

»» Investigative fiction based on historical fact »» Cross-cultural analysis and masculinities »» Femicide in Mexico

From the Back Cover:

Three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; a police detective in love with an elusive older woman - these are among the searchers drawn to the border city of Santa Teresa, where over the course of a decade hundreds of women have disappeared.

by Roberto Bolaño

893

In the words of The Washington Post, “With 2666, Bolaño joins the ambitious overachievers of the twentiethcentury novel, those like Proust, Musil, Joyce, Gaddis, Pynchon, Fuentes, and Vollmann, who push the novel far past its conventional size and scope to encompass an entire era, deploying encyclopedic knowledge and stylistic verve to offer a grand, if sometimes idiosyncratic, summation of their culture and the novelist’s place in it.

Bolaño has joined the immortals.”

“A work of devastating power and complexity, a final statement worthy of a master.” ~Adam Mansbach, The Boston Globe.

Pros:

This epic work keeps readers engaged in the twists and turns of the story, while also presenting a very real perspective on different masculinities across nations and cultures. Bolaño raises awareness about the very real femicide occurring in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, with the fictional version of this city, Santa Teresa in 2666. The book tells five stories, intertwined, giving readers many perspectives on the story.

Cons:

One portion of the book is focused on the mass killing of women in Santa Teresa, and as such, is quite difficult to read, since it recounts the tales of countless women who are brutally raped and murdered, their bodies later discovered abandoned. Stylistically, the book reads better in its original Spanish.

Table of Contents

Praise for 2666: “Indeed, Bolaño produced not only a supreme capstone to his own vaulting ambition, but a landmark in what’s possible for the novel as a form in our increasingly, and terrifyingly, postnational world.” ~Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review

Issue of Men

Dual Perspectives: Helpless Together

By Adam Gura This piece was written right after my daughter Lucy had her second surgery. I was in the middle of a creative writing class for my Master’s and had a lot of reasons to get this story off of my chest. I think dads get into their heads that they have to be steadfast when it comes to difficult situations with family and I wanted to show how on the surface they often times may be true, but underneath we have so many questions and fears. Adding my wife’s perspective allowed me to show how we are incomplete without each other. There comes a point in family where life is beyond control of a man and you must accept it for what it is. Becoming a father has made me a man because I can now accept the fact that I cannot control everything. I can scream and kick and fight fate for what it gives me, or I can embrace my wife and child and accept the situation. I’m hoping that when someone reads this, they too can understand that giving up control allows a man to gain control.

I’m writing this after a few beers. I needed something to assuage my nerves, considering I had to spend the day helpless. We knew this day was coming; after all we got the news before our daughter Lucy was even born.

appointment.

I check on Lucy through the night, an unsuspecting, innocent baby about to go through more than I’ve ever had to. I’m not much of a praying man, but the times called for a moment with me and God:

“Your daughter has hydronephrosis,” the doctor said.

What the hell is hydronephrosis? Does it even matter? Your child is hurt and you need to do something about it.

I’m helpless to do anything so I ask of you to watch over her in this time, amen. want to fix

As a dad, I things; I want to be able to kiss the boo-boo and make it all better.

But I can’t. This is more complicated than that.

As a dad, I want to fix things; I want to be able to kiss the boo-boo and make it all better. But I can’t.

This is more complicated than that.

The good doctors of UW Madison found a solution to our dilemma: a cutaneous ureterostomy followed by a tapered reimplantation of the ureter to the bladder.

Our problem: Lucy’s ureter and left kidney are enlarged due to a blockage near the entry of the bladder.

Their Solution: remove the ureter from the bladder and bring it to the surface of the skin so that kidney and ureter can decompress. After a year, the doctors will reattach the ureter to the bladder.

* I can’t sleep. Even though I have set two alarms, I fear that somehow there will be a massive electronic short out just for one moment, somehow causing all battery and electrically charged objects to stop working. I look at the clock every hour. I don’t have fear as much as my husband does, he’s a bit of a pessimist. Still I dread the moment where Lucy and I part ways.

Will this be the last time I see her? I should have been a stay at home mom so I could have been with her every day.

I made Adam sleep closer to Lucy. He can sleep through anything and I know that I’d be checking on her throughout the night. Adam isn’t much of a praying man and I know he struggles with accepting that God lets things like this happen, so I pray: please god make our daughter come out just fine, amen.

We stay the night before at a Best Western. 6:15 a.m. The evening before surgery is hell. I sleep although the worst case scenarios pop into my mind as I daze in and out of sleep. What if this goes wrong? Will she lose her kidney?

What if they give her too much anesthesia and turn her into a vegetable? My wife is worse than me. Every hour I can feel her looking at the alarm clock making sure we don’t miss the

The hardest part isn’t necessarily the waiting.

Many people will probably disagree with this statement. But for me, I can’t watch her get taken away from me. Only one of us is allowed to go with her into the operating room. Lauren chooses to go. Between watching her get taken away or watching her fight the gas mask and watch her little eyes roll back into sleep, I choose stay.

Coward.

Table of Contents

* Sounded a bit out of a medical experiment gone bad, but it’s been done before and with great success. I’m in. Someone can fix her.

I make the best of the time while we wait. I have to do something; I don’t want my mind to continue to think about scenarios. We walk through the hospital, making our way to the cafeteria to eat stale donuts and focus on school work. For the most part, this helps stave off the terrible thoughts that can fill a frightened parent’s mind.

I finish the last beer I have in the house alone while Lauren tends to Lucy at the hospital. I still don’t feel quite at ease with the situation.

My daughter is sleeping and the prognosis is good. Thinking about it all, I feel paralyzed, embarrassed to the fact that I couldn’t do anything besides stand there and take the situation as it was. All I can do now is cry, not sob, but slowly and deliberately cry.

I have to be strong for my wife. I can see in her eyes that any break in me will cause her to crash. * I’m reminded of a line of a song: “I want to have I don’t know if was God listening to two parents pride like my momma has, with their world at the and not the kind in the bible mercy of a surgeon’s I have to be strong for the turns you bad.” I really knife, or if it was superior my wife. I can see in her do want to sob, shout at medical practice, but God Why her? But I hold on eyes that any break in me Lucy pulled through. I for her. like to think of the divine will cause her to crash...I guiding a knife of a good * man. I fully understand the really do want to sob, As I walk with Lucy in my concept of aging a year in shout at God Why her?

But arms, I can feel her fear. She a day now, but more so, I holds tight to body while her understand the sanctity of I hold on for her. other hand delicately plays family. It’s so much more with my hair. It’s a comfort powerful than marriage, thing she does whenever she needs me. I try to and it is so much more powerful than love: to peel her off my body while she sobs and cries care for and pour your heart and soul into an for mommy. I have to hold down her little arms idea as awesome as family. and legs while she takes in the anesthesia. She’s gone.

Bio: Hello, My name is Adam Gura and I’m a man. I do manly things like run really long Please God. distances and lift heavy weights over and over again. I play music at bars and have a dog that I walk back to my husband and he holds me. He looks like Chewbacca. I teach literature, writing has strength that holds me together when I feel and journalism to high school students, and weak. in the fall, I coach soccer. When I’m not off doing manly things like this, I’m a father and a I wish I could be that strong. husband. They occupy most of my time, and I’ll gladly give it. I guess this is more manly than Adam can’t sit still. He’s never been a patient anything, and that’s pretty sweet. person. He doesn’t deal well when time and actions are out of his hands. He doesn’t think I notice him combatting his fears and emotions. I touch his shoulder as a silent gesture of care. We both have our ways of sorting out emotions, but he needs to know that I’m there for him and him for me. *

[IM]

WLA Re-Animated Artifacts from the vaults of the Women’s & Leadership Archives 196o: “Athletics: Basketball” Description: Basketball photo of two Loyola players and two Mundelein players , with the men in their uniforms and the women in skirts.

Commentary: In the presented photo, two men from Loyola and two women from Mundelein are playing a game of basketball together. While traditional features of masculinity were about embracing and reinforcing gender structures (i.e. women and sports), here both men and women are enjoying each other’s company while playing basketball together, which was considered a traditional “male” sport.

Table of Contents

WLA Mission Statement: Established in 1994, the Women and Leadership Archives (WLA) collects, preserves, organizes, describes, and makes available materials of enduring value to researches studying women’s contributions to society.

Broadside Expressions in Poetry via Street Literature Style

disiplining and dethroning

left-right-follow-the-arrows. midway through the car ride, you—the driver— realize your passenger forgot to masturbate. left-right. you wonder if you should pull over and let him have at ‘er or if you should just keep ignoring his requests: letting him relieve tension, steal power and mark his territory. left-right-watch-for-pedestrians. you notice that he hasn’t given a single helpful pointer since you put the key in the ignition, essentially dictating every move you were going to make or were in the process of making. left-right-yep-construction-yep-slowing-down. uncertain about whether he’s barking or jerking off, you realize that he doesn’t steal power from people he respects, always letting men and his superiors drive their own vehicles, dictate their own moves. you—the driver—are the only person he steals power from. left-right-slow-down-park-here-no-there. with a few road trips and a few feminist readings under your belt, you—the driver— gradually start biting back. please-stop.

by Janna Payne armed with facts, figures and one-liners, you—the driver—start carrying a clipboard, pointing fingers, ripping him a new one and running the show. stop-controlling-me. hardly putting a dent in him, you pull the car over and give him to the count of ten: taming, disciplining and dethroning him. if-you-don’t-behave, you’ll-get-what’s-coming-to-ya! like a politician feigning a war, your claims quickly become indisputable as you outwit, outsmart and outdo that sorry son of a bitch in the passenger seat. spoutingstatistics and fallacies, exaggerations and theories, youthrow him in the back, strap him into a child seat, and silence him once and for all, dishonouring his—or perhaps your— capacity for dialogue, growth and relationship. shame-on-you.

Janna Payne writes from Cork, Ireland. She is a master of divinity candidate in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. Having devoted countless poems, rants, stand-up comedy routines and organizational memos to disciplining and dethroning others, she has recently been contemplating how to influence change withoutpulling pranks, making Freudian jabs or backing others into a corner. Perhaps the absurdity of this poem is a start.

There’s a lot of talk, especially in the African American community, about the importance of the presence of the father, and there are so many black boys who grow up without their dad there.

And I think what needs to be said is that it has to a positive and functional presence..if it’s not a nurturing, positive presence, then it can do more damage than good.

We wanted to be these masculineidentified rap guys who were not jerks...People felt we were talented, but they didn’t know quite what to do with it...how do you market an openly queer rap group? The gay community has seen rap music as something that’s anti-thetical to their existence.

Tim’M T. West

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have experienced an unshamed gay attraction back in high school, when I certainly had them. Now I’m committed to supporting safe, nurturing spaces for youth to enjoy themselves...as they are. It’s more than just a job, when you love it.

And it troubles me that sexism is such an insidiously ever-present normality that I’m thought of as abnormal for trying to challenge it. I don’t like that women get paid less for the same work. I hate when the value of a woman is measured through her sex or baby-making ability. I respect a woman’s right to choose a destiny I don’t believe is not best for her... because i value that same freedom. What is feminism if not about full freedom?

Being a feminist Dad for me has meant not reducing my daughter’s body to an object-to-be-protected... as some extension of my property. It’s about encouraging and nurturing spaces for her to self-actualize as she believes will benefit the life she’s building FOR HERSELF.

I’m a masculine Brotha. I am not however INVESTED in masculinity as a gendered construct.

I value the difference.

I think because black men have been emasculated so much in the culture, from everything from Jim Crow to Sambo and the media portrayal of black men as these kind of buffoons, there’s a lot of emphasis on reclaiming masculinity, which does put a lot of additional pressure on black men.

Table of Contents

“

Quote Corner

By Emma Steiber

Queer Thoughts A Transgressive Approach

The Destroying of Diderot’s Ring “Makes sense now,” someone comments when I mention that the transsexual music engineer for pedals, Devi Ever, is one of the few women to be a certified badass at music and engineering.

But why, according to this person, does it make sense? Why is it hard to question someone’s ability

based on whether the person is male or female?

Associations of talent such as this are associated with the male biologically and, subsequently, the masculine. The biological and the cultural become wrongfully intertwined and interchangeable. From talent to looks, society places codes, definitions,

and characteristics to a biology that is, when stripped down, fluid. We should begin to question why paths, such as engineering, have become associated with a male trait and how this is really just a blinder to the ever-present cultural instability.

In R. W. Connell’s chapter “The Science of Masculinity” within Masculinities, a “normalizing theory” is brought to the forefront of society’s ways of thinking. Within this theory, transsexualism amongst men becomes “defined not as the and make the masculine desire to be a woman, but Whether the comment on dominate over the as the belief that one already Ever was meant to point out is” (Connell 15). Thus, feminine. It becomes that it’s hard for a woman “feminine” mannerisms and to make it in the industry an obsession by society dress become the standard or that a woman can’t to define based on that doctor’s inscribe onto accomplish masculinemen transitioning into assumed professions, binaries and to insert women. If we break it down the binary still exists and the masculine/feminine to the bare brittle bones, must be eradicated. As though, domination isn’t Michel Foucault alludes to, binary into biological biological, but based on whoever holds Diderot’s concreteness. cultural binaries. As Connell ring has the power over asserts in history, it isn’t the the sexes to speak. Yet it is man dominating the woman, more important to note, not rather it’s the masculine dominating the feminine. who holds this power, but why this search and Thus, a doctor’s “scientific” backings on how questioning have become important. My opinion, transsexuals after surgery must integrate within but by no means everyone’s, is that it is because society is based on the masculine/feminine binary. of domination of the cultural masculine over the cultural female. Yet what one doesn’t remember is The phallus, as I mentioned before in a previous that this also gives us the advantage to destabilize issue, is a perfect example of society’s association this binary and hierarchical relationship. of the penis with domination and phallic power. It Emphasized by Connell, “Hegemony, then, does not mean total control” (Connell 37). One must makes one strain to imagine within such a society remember the relations of culture to the Homo a man without the masculine. If he isn’t this, he sapien because it is the former that allows the is assumed effeminate, a gendered stereotype Homo sapien to explore and expand. Most historically known as the “fairy” in the late importantly, masculine, as much as feminine, isn’t nineteenth century. Ever’s transsexualism and the in a solid, pure state-- with ideas come new and comment on her imply that “she” is still a “he” to subversive ones that can branch off. this person, regardless of her beliefs and her change.

Transsexualism can blur and confuse observers, such as the one mentioned in the beginning, because she is neither feminine nor masculine.

Yet one feels the urge to choose. If she ends up in a music engineering profession, she is assumed masculine for the talent and smarts it takes for one to design such pedals, while also being called a

Table of Contents

“he/she” by the musician Billy Corgan. In effect, trans-bashing becomes the way for some to assert the binaries back within sexuality and make the masculine dominate over the feminine. It becomes an obsession by society to define based on binaries and to insert the masculine/feminine binary into biological concreteness.

In effect, trans-bashing This is impossible and, as Connell states, does not becomes the way for acknowledge the important some to assert binaries relation between the “physical” and the “social” back within sexuality workings (Connell 43).

Issue of Men

You Know I’m Gonna be Like You

By Bryan George

Bringing up young males to be men might be seen popularly as the first priority of a generation. The Positive Male Influence is charged with protecting

the sanctity of masculinity. Anyone who wants to be seen as a man had damned well better act like one, or so help them God. But how do

you be a man? Many best efforts, the poetry answer this by turning compilation I’d been They caught their breath to the father figure in published in from 7th and explained together their lives, and a long grade turned up in my enough conversation how it wasn’t bad or wrong dad’s hands. He read about masculinity will my submission to her, that I cried.

It was amazing, usually turn to the topic bragged that it was in the of fathers. Daily, I see the said, that I was able to top ten for my age group, fathers enforcing their and held the book up to understand what the song was brand of masculinity show how it had an entire on their sons, who do about. Feeling deeply was a page to itself. Back when it to their friends. It’s I had found out that I was good thing, and turning your already easy to feel going to be published, like you aren’t acting feelings into a lesson helps you I told all of my friends “right” when you’re the news. A few of them grow. Masculinity didn’t even a kid- everyone is were excited for me, but constantly correcting figure into the conversation. even more laughed that your behavior and I had written a poem at trying to shape you into all, called it “gay” and their idea of the appropriate sort of person. I am moved on. It took me that long to learn that writing lucky. If I’ve learned anything by looking up to my poetry wasn’t accepted normal male behavior. I father, being a man and being a woman seem to think some dads grind their teeth and wait for the mean anything you want. He never made me feel poetry phase to pass. Mine ordered three copies like I was acting “wrong”. and has held on to them for twelve years.

My girlfriend officially met my family for Thanksgiving of 2012. She jumped right in, offering to make the stuffing and take shifts entertaining the youngest kids. At some point, despite my

There are vital parts of my character today that would have been missing if my dad had been like so many others- people who think that the worst thing a son could be seen as is un-masculine. And he’s proud of me. He’s glad that I do maintenance, but because I’m providing for myself. He thinks that I have a kind and understanding heart. When I’m lying awake, terrified that I’m letting my father down, it’s not because I don’t fill out every box on someone else’s checklist of masculinity. It’s because he worked hard so I’d have the chance to be who or whatever I want. I hope I can live up to that.

Bryan George is a part time writer out of Kenosha, Wisconsin. His focus is on semantics, and how it can be used to improve perceptions and values of gender.

[IM]

Table of Contents

When I was five or six years old, I was playing with the dog in the living room. My dad liked to have the stereo going while he was cleaning or cooking, and had his main lineup of 70’s folk on constant rotation. He was doing the dishes to Harry Chapin, and Cats in the Cradle came on. This might be the first time I’d ever actually listened to the lyrics of a song, because it hit me so profoundly that by the end I was absolutely weeping. My mom and dad dropped what they were doing to come see just what had happened. “Did the dog bite you? Did you fall?” “No (sniff), the song. It’s so… sad.” They laughed hard, for the remainder of the song. They caught their breath and explained together how it wasn’t bad or wrong that I cried. It was amazing, they said, that I was able to understand what the song was about. Feeling things deeply was a good thing, and turning your feelings into a lesson helps you grow. Masculinity didn’t even figure into the conversation.

Words are Useless Artist: Abraham Velazquez Tello

Machos Artist Statement: The Machos project revolves around issues of gender and masculinity within the Latino community.

It calls into question how different subcultures either accept or challenge these proposed images of masculinity. This series of photography not only places the viewer in the position to critically view these stereotypes, but also provides a look into how they are appropriated by different individuals or particular groups. Issues that pervade the ideology of Latino masculinity include concepts of domination, control, competition, and performance. Machismo is more than an attitude, it is a system in which social practices and beliefs are used to justify control over women, and even over males. Often this type of system creates a stigma against any form of performed feminine behavior by the male population (the basis for homophobia). Luckily, our ideas of gender are shifting to allow a more open interpretation of gender roles that coalesces the more traditional views with the modern into a form of neo-machismo.

It is up to the younger generation that is now influenced, and conflicted, by the blending of their forefathers’ traditions and mainstream culture, to decide what masculinity means to them. During this struggle for individualism, or a new ideology, many encounter difficulty because of the pressure to carry on patriarchal traditions in which manhood is not just passed onto the next generation through name, but also in behavior and talents. By extension, these traditions enforce ties to culture and, specifically in immigrant communities, emphasize ties to the patria of origin.

Machismo is more than an attitude, it is a system in which social practices and beliefs are used to justify control over women, and even over males. Often, this type of system creates a stigma against any form of performed feminine behavior by the male population...

Biography: Abraham Velázquez Tello is a man of many talents, but Design and Development for the Web is his main squeeze. By day and night, he plays around with new API’s, obsessively tags links and keeps up with the latest tech news. Through his work in the interactive industry, Velázquez Tello has come to the realization that he lives by common sense, thoughtful strategy and very clean lines. In early 2010 — after realizing the great potential and need to spotlight Chicago’s vibrant Latino community and culture — he launched Gozamos, with a whole lotta ganas and all the spare change in his pockets. Since then, Velázquez Tello has managed a team of 20 contributors and editors, plus the sales and marketing operations. Gozamos has rapidly grown to be the most comprehensive new media publication for Latinos in Chicago. As an artist, he works in a vari­ety of media — such as photography and printmaking — that allows him to inves­ti­gate social issues within the Latino com­mu­nity. Velázquez Tello is a coordinator for the Chicago Art Department and a co-founder of the experimental artist group Tripa Colectivo. He volunteers with and teaches at many non-profits, including the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and several alternative high schools around the city.He currently resides in Chicago, IL. Website: http://abraham.mx/

Table of Contents

Machos

Artist: Abramah Velazquez Tello

Photography, 2013

Artist: Abramah Velazquez Tell

Machos

Photography, 2013

Table of Contents

Machos

Artist: Abramah Velazquez Tello

Photography, 2013

Artist: Abramah Velazquez Tello

Machos

Photography, 2013

Table of Contents

Machos

Artist: Abramah Velazquez Tello

Photography, 2013

Issue of Men

Packaging the Package: A Feminist Critique of Masculinity in

Magic Mike

By Nina Berman

When Magic Mike hit theatres in the summer of 2012, it was heralded as a landmark of sorts in cinema. Finally, a film about male strippers.

Finally, men were put on display for the aesthetic and erotic pleasure of a female gaze. Finally, some

gender equality on the silver screen. But the film, about men who strip because of the economic constraints of the recession, does not fit neatly into that unequivocal praise. As always, there seems to be something more going on. Josh Nelson’s essay,

between nakedness and nudity and its relation to power. He writes in Ways of Seeing, “nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display” (54). For Bordo and Berger, the nude is not exposed in any kind of dangerous way, sexually or emotionally.

Being nude is a form of dress in itself. It is only nakedness that is vulnerable. The male strippers, for all their revealing underwear, never come close to nakedness in Berger’s understanding of the term. In this way, even though Magic Mike shows males stripping, it does very little in the way of breaking gender norms for Nelson.

Nelson’s analysis goes On the one hand, Nelson The male dancers perform further, though. He sees acknowledges the very an exaggerated masculinity a tension in the film normative masculinity of between the dominant the dancers in their onstage for both the feminized masculinity presented by performance. Compared consumer culture of the the dancers onstage and to other stripper films, the circumstances under these dancers are totally strip club’s female clientele which they dance. The in control of the strip in the film and also for main character in Magic joint, moving with agency Mike, Magic Mike himself and power. Nelson writes, the whooping audience as portrayed by Channing “unlike the typical screen of adult girlfriends the Tatum, is an aspiring representations of female artisinal furniture maker. strippers rotating on film was marketed to. The He wants to be able to poles as passive objects, work with his hands, to the men in Magic Mike film, then, is a critique of produce aesthetic and dominate both the stage those expectations and utilitarian items with and the crowd, cavorting commodified masculinities. the power of his brawn. with audience members However, he is refused a at will” (Nelson). In bank loan and resorts instead to dressing like a this sense, the men are performing the kind of hot cop, a construction worker, and other fantasies masculinity we expect just as female strippers in of traditional masculine power. Nelson argues, other movies perform normative femininity. The “Magic Mike thus presents a form of commodified male dancers are in control, even though they are masculinity in which the male body (in its aesthetic stripped down and performing for the money of a rather than functional regard) has become the female audience. The dancers are powerful within only viable object of exchange in the specular the strip club; in charge of the space and in charge currency of contemporary capitalism” (Nelson). of the terms of their interactions with their clients, Dominant masculinity in the film, for Nelson, is even if they are not economically powerful outside a fantasy packaged for consumption by a paying the strip club. audience. The dancers have in some way not lived up to the dominant masculine ideals in their Bordo notes the gender difference between male own lives and resort of play-acting those ideals in and female strippers as well. “Nowadays, men do skimpy costumes. The male dancers perform an strip for erotic display. But when they do so, they exaggerated masculinity for both the feminized tend to present their bodies aggressively and rarely consumer culture of the strip club’s female clientele seem truly exposed” (30). Even though the male in the film and also for the whooping audience dancers in Magic Mike are nearly nude, they are of adult girlfriends the film was marketed to. The not naked. John Berger remarks on the difference

Table of Contents

“Reigning Men Masculinity in Magic Mike”, exposes some of the more subtle messages surrounding gender issues in the film. The strength of his analysis hinges on the feminist understanding that gender is a culturally constructed performance. Feminist thought destabilizes gender norms and relations by pointing them out to be learned behaviors, a “cultural grammar of gender” as Susan Bordo calls it instead of just the way that men and women naturally are (23). Nelson delves into the way that the film exposes the performances of masculinity and its commodification.

film, then, is a critique of those expectations and commodified masculinities.

The characters are performing a simulacrum of masculinity, a male drag.

Magic Mike happens to be fertile grounds for the exploration of gender as performance because the film is both explicitly about performers and implicitly about the everyday performance of masculinity.

Marilyn Frye, in her discussion of sexism, gestures towards a similar understanding of gender performance. She points out that, “heterosexual critics of queer ‘roleplaying’ ought to look at themselves in the mirror on their way out for a night on the town to see who’s in drag. The answer is, everybody is” (29).

Frye and Nelson are both up to the same sort of analysis here. Both critics see these as instances of gender performance and not simply something natural and normal. Nelson sees the film as selfconsciously acknowledging gender as performance whereas Frye sees gender performance or drag as going unacknowledged on the streets.

Nelson opens his discussion of Magic Mike with a quote from one of its characters. Dallas, played by Matthew McConaughey, tells the other dancers, “You’re not just stripping. You are fulfilling every woman’s wildest fantasies. You are the husband that they never had. You are the dreamboat guy that never came along” (Nelson).

What Nelson argues in his essay is that the film is indeed about fantasies of masculinity. But they are not exclusively the fantasies of women. The film is concerned with society’s fantastical ideals and models of masculinity, and not so much about fulfilling them for a squealing audience of women having a ladies night out. Magic Mike is concerned with exposing masculinity as a fantasy, packaged for commodification and consumption.

The masculinities of Magic Mike are wishful thinking, highly enticing and extraordinarily marketable. Masculinity for Nelson is more than just a performance, or drag, it is bound up in consumption and commodification. Magic Mike happens to be fertile grounds for the exploration of gender as performance because the film is both explicitly about performers and implicitly about

the everyday performance of masculinity. Nelson brings to the forefront, as a good feminist critic does, that gender is not inborn.

It is something practiced, learned, performed, (and only sometimes for a paying audience).

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1972. Print.

Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Print.

Frye, Marilyn. The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing, 1983. Print.

Nelson, Josh. “Reigning Men? Masculinity in Magic Mike.” Reigning Men? Masculinity in Magic Mike | Kill Your Darlings. Kill Your Darlings, 5 Sept. 2012. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http:// www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2012/09/ reigning-men- masculinity-in-magic-mike/>.

Nina Berman is a third-year double major English and WSGS. She enjoys petting other people’s dogs, crying to podcasts, and thinking up nicknames for Judith Butler.

[IM]

More

BroadSide Expressions in Poetry via Street Literature Style

by Matt Osborn

How silly these brains of ours, boys.

that this is not the time nor place

Haunted, for some unknown reason,

for such a thought,

by a phantom thought which intrudes

and that such thoughts are pointing us

at the most unfortunate of times.

in the opposite direction of happiness,

At the times when we should be present.

we want to snidely ask,

When we should be reverent.

“More?”

it makes its presence known, and though quiet, the message it whispers can not be ignored.

“More,” it says, despite the fact that we don’t wish to hear it.

“More.”

But as confident as we are in this position, our phantoms do not relent.

“Yes,” they say more assuredly than us, “More.”

And our souls, so long starved, begin to rumble and growl, and despite our logical conclusions,

“More?”

our caution,

we want to ask in disgust,

our experience and reflection,

confident in our wonderful logic

we give in to this desire,

that has convinced us

hoping,

that such is a futile drive.

as we always do

Knowing full well

(though sometimes we wish to deny this),

Matt Osborn is a Quad City native. He is in his third year studying Education at St. Ambrose University. In his free time, he enjoys going on walks and eating BBQ.

that this time we will get it.

And we whisper, “More.”

Table of Contents

When we should be happy,

MADADS Busted Advertising, Bustling Economy

1960’s advertisements

The Evolution Body in Ad The Way of W Protected by M

Current Dolce & Gabbana cam Male bodies have undoubtedly undergone a transformation in advertising to be bigger, taller, and leaner from previous decades, but what do these changes mean?

In the current Dolce & Gabbana underwear ad campaign, professional soccer players are used to “display healthy and athletic bodies scupted through rigorous training sessions and discipline.” Does this ad campaign counteract previous campaigns where men are shown in submissive and degrading positions?

n of the Male dvertising: Women or Still Male Privilege?

Dolce & Gabbana Winter 2008 campaign

Does the current ad campaign contribute to healthy body image for men, thereby reinforcing double standards between what is considered beautiful for men versus women?

Or does this new campaign continue the route of evolution for men’s bodies, showing professional athletes as the new “normal” because professional models have become so unrealistic and unnatural? How does this affect the perception of the female body?

What do you think?

MadAds contributed by Natalie Beck.

Table of Contents

mpaign featuring soccer players

Issue of Men

Male Privilege???

By Dexter

It is sometimes hard for someone to believe something they have not experienced themselves or witnessed first hand. Male privilege is one of these things. This is a topic that is hard for born males to wrap their heads around because they have always experienced it and know no different.

I on the other hand was born into a female body and have experience not having the privilege

that I saw male friends receiving for 30 years.

Then I started my journey into a male body with hormones and surgery: I am transgender.

As soon as I was perceived as a born male in everyday life, it happened: I received instant male privilege. This happened more with strangers than friends, but let me be clear, some friends started

us based on gender. I have to say some of us are sensitive, This was the first time it kind, and do not have an really hit me hard that ulterior motive. The same way women feel being judged is I was now a privileged the way men can be judged. white male. You would An example I experienced was when I was working in think that I would be serviced based excited but it was just the ajob.customer There was a mother that stepped away from her opposite. I felt sad and toddler son that was on a beaten: I did not want to stool playing with a toy train.

My instinct kicked in because oppress my past.

One of the events that we had cement floors and I bothered me most is when realized I was close enough my wife and I went to a restaurant and the waiter to keep on eye on the child so he did not fall off totally disregarded her and spoke directly to me this stool until the mother returned. My intentions only as if I was superior. This was the first time were pure but her response was not. When she it really hit me hard that I was now a privileged came back she gave me such a look as if I were white male. You would think that I would be up to no good. Even when I said I was just nervous excited but it was just the opposite. I felt sad and that he may fall off the stool and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean any beaten: I did not want to oppress my past. I did not disrespect, she still had a negative response to me. want to be part of this but here I was a privileged I had done similar things when I was female and white male. It seemed being male was the only it was always okay; people were grateful you were thing I ever wanted and now that it was here I was talking to their kids and showing them attention. lost for the first time frustrated. The only thing that I now knew the downside of being a privileged I could think to do is to speak up tell my story white male. I say this because because gender share it. So I started writing a book to enlighten inequalities impact both men and women. Women people so they, too, could understand how we also need to remember not to judge people solely are treating each other and hope that even a few based on gender. Treat people based on their ideas, would change to help the future generations. For morals, standards and personality. All people need men to stop and think about how they are treating to work together to tear down the walls that define people differently based solely on gender. and categorize people according to their gender instead of who they are as people.

We all do it but we have to slow down think about it and change. We need to treat people based on their ideas, morals, standards and personality.

Things that we control not things we are born into.

We need to take control and break the cycle, break out of the boxes, break down the walls we build and create equality. Who would have thought that I could be more of a feminist as a male then I was in my female past. But now that I see the other side I know and want to make a change. The change starts here.

I want to make sure I cover both sides there is also some negativity that males receive that I have witnessed as well: the way that women perceive

[IM]

Table of Contents

treating me different as well.

There are small things like the way another male shakes your hand or looks you in the eyes when talking to you automatically with more respect. It is hard to explain, but I was treated with instant knowledge on topics, even things I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know about. I was also instantly perceived by most to be stronger both physically and mentally.

Words are Useless Featured Cover Artist: Johnny Beaver Biography: As a founding member of the Temporary Artists Guild, Johnny Beaver (JE) is a multimedia artist with concentrations in conventional and mixed-media painting as well as music composition, poetry, digital lo-fi photography, software synthesizer design, et cetera.

Recent gallery credits include a ‘Best In Show’ 2011 LBCC Student Exhibit (and a Juror’s Choice award in 2012) as well as spots in the Jacobs Gallery (Eugene) 2011 and 2012 Small Pleasures invitationals. His work has been featured on the cover of the Lane CC Denali arts magazine.

He currently resides outside of Corvallis Oregon and writes for the Corvallis Advocate arts & culture section, as well as the Midnight Muse art quarterly.

Website: http://temporaryartists.org/jearchive/index.htm

Dredge

2011; acrylic, oil, and cement on canvas; 20”x16”

2012; acryclic, oil, and ink on canvas; 30”x48”

Table of Contents

Magnetics

Artist: Johnny Beaver

Artist: Johnny Beaver

Patriotism

2007; digital

Table of Contents

The Mariner

Artist: Johnny Beaver

2012; oil, ink, and acrylic on canvas; 20”x30”

Issue of Men

Male Feminist Motives: What was Tuthmosis Talking About?

by Katie Christenson

What exactly motivates straight male feminists? Well if you ask Tuthmosis, our valiant whistleblower,the one and only reason a straight man would ever claim to be a feminist is to get women into bed.

Luckily for us ladies , we have intercepted an article published by our valiant whistleblower, Tuthmosis,

revealing the secret strategy some men follow in order to get us into bed. Though Tuthmosis writes this article as a response to a video someone posted on YouTube. In the article he implies that women lack the ability to think for themselves, and thus published his article. The article serves as a sole caution to non-feminist men. For that purpose, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m

constructing this to reach out to the straight female population, so you can decide for yourself if this describes a male feminist you know. I hope there is at least one reader who, despite our incapacity to think for ourselves, may actually stand up to the alluded to manipulation!

So here it is, the 7 Tell Tale Signs that the man you are dealing with, is in fact, an undercover womanizer:

2.

He has a Snarky tone and Rolls his Eyes.

Watch out for this one ladies! He is strategically planting blasphemy into his sentences, so that you are not as threatened...

Our author ends his message by warning real men to watch out for these male feminists. While manipulative and womanizing, these male feminists are so loyal to their cause that they will “cannibalize” masculinity at every opportunity, just to prove themselves to their “female overlords”.

Tuthmosis did nothing to debate the video’s points, instead he just made an ad attack on him.

The proven fact of the matter hominem His argument that males cannot be feminists would is, people are capable also conclude impure of sympathizing with motives for Caucasians to have walked with Martin others who face different Luther King, Jr. against challenges in society. Is color supremacy.

It’s clearly an informal fallacy. it so naiive to actually His attack does nothing believe men claiming to to disprove the ethically appropriate motives of be feminists could imagine male feminists; it merely an improved society from points out the possibility of a conflict of interest. gender equality?

3.

He’s got a Veganstyle Beard. If his muscles are underdeveloped, and he covers his strength in hipster fashion, it is because he is purposely avoiding the gym, so as not to intimidate you!

4.

He uses Feminist Jargon. This is a huge red flag! The breadth of his feminist vocabulary is directly correlated to the height of your zipper.

5.

He is a Rape Alarmist. He’ll make you insecure by pulling the rape card obsessively, reminding you of the threat men stronger than you pose with their manly roughness and toughness.

6.

He Enables Feminist Hysteria. He is working to solidify your permanent fear of men… but somehow you are so naïve that you will still hook up with him.

7.

He says things that are Academically Grounded. Since we aren’t completely mindless,

The proven fact of the matter is, people are capable of sympathizing with each other and with others who face different challenges in society. Is it so naïve to actually believe men claiming to be feminists could imagine an improved society from gender equality? I’d like to think not, but maybe I contribute to the ignorance Tuthmosis refers to in his article. It is just too bad that gullibility plays a very significant role here, isn’t it?

Katie Christensen is currently in her last semester as an undergraduate at Loyola University Chicago, studying Entrepreneurship. When she isn’t out engaging in the startup community, traveling, or playing video games, you can reach her at ktchristensen@live.com and follow her on Twitter @ktfromchicago.

[IM]

Table of Contents

1. He has a Lispy, Effete Voice. According to our author, male feminists will deliberately force a gay tone, so that we are not offended by their masculine bass.

he’ll want to legitimize his logic, so he’ll mention something about misandry.

Broadside Expressions in Poetry via Street Literature Style

By Alex Layman

Where My Fists Land What are we to do in that moment our fists find the wall? The charade has carried itself so long. Lifetimes. Walls built around the objects we love; around belief, or disbelief; around deeply held secrets searing our lungs until theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re coughed back up. Ashes line the baseboards, burn marks mar the drywall of our broken homes.

What are we to do when our fists wage war on exteriors? Fortresses of hay, clay, lumber, sod--no stronger than loudly spoken words that crumble like plaster, cracking on the sides of split lips.

How are we to deal with the conflict this earth stirs at our feet? Time pushes walls higher, while the things they protect slide into the ocean.

And, here we stand, swinging fists at bricks, scared of what we know but cannot see.

Alex lives in Austin, TX and is currently seeking representation for a manuscript about his travels (and misadventures) throughout the Panamanian countryside. When not writing, he can usually be found rock climbing or hiking in the Texas hill country. Read more of Alexâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work at his website, www.scribbledwanderland.weebly.com, or follow him on Twitter @AlexLayman.

Broken Eggs There were three bird eggs in the grass by the cedar tree.

Three eggs, two friends and me.

Seven years old, I smashed them with a nearby rock, nearly

Sometime later, my father put a hammer in my hand, told me, “Swing, don’t think.”

I hesitated. Missed my mark.

Two years ago, I found a squirrel’s tail in the attic.

I remembered the father-son hunt, with specialty varmint fogs, perfumed poisons, and pellet guns.

The attic--a hallowed treasure trove-home to forgotten memories.

Gems beneath the cobwebs. It took twenty-one years and one specific moment to realize I was a victim of petrification; skin collecting debris like sedimentary stones, limestone muscles crumbling when tested.

People used to tell me, “Your future’s so bright,” and, “You’ll shine soon enough.” Last Saturday, tired of waiting on prophesies, I went to my father’s tool box and found the hammer.

One strong swing to the sternum cracked me wide open.

Yolks spilled onto the garage floor, glimmered in the fluorescent light.

Today I write about it, trying to unearth idioms about what happens when the world gives you broken eggs, or, at least, what comes after selfdestruction.

Table of Contents

a boulder in my youthful hands; yellow yolk and white shell painted the mud-caked bottom. Death was never my first choice, but better to learn early.

by Abeer Allan

Middle Eastern Musings A Dive into the Dead Sea

Men in Our Lives I have been accused of hating men whenever I try to express the way I feel about society’s thoughts and opinions against women’s rights. As I try to raise a voice and “bold up” to ask for a little freedom, the arguments raise alongside my voice, trying to shut it down, accusing me of hating men, asking for unrealistic things, or that I’m acting like a man – an unconscious confession that men are the only ones who are allowed to raise their voices and act the way they want without being judged.

I never hated men; I never raised my voice against men as human beings, if you know what I mean. But I am against how societies classify women as second class citizens, and men as first.

I am an angry, sad woman when I hear about

a man killing his sister in the name of “honor”, I am an angry sad woman when I hear about a rapist or a man abusing his wife, daughter or any girl, verbally or physically. I hate (those) men.

I honestly have no idea on how it all started, whose fault it is, how men came in first throughout these centuries, despite all the stories we witness and hear about that are against women. Men using their physical strength and community power/position against us, women.

But I do know men are not the only ones to blame. I know that there are men who stand up against other men, stand up against society’s sick jokes against women. I know men who stand up against rape and sexual harassment, men who raise their voice and hands to defend women,

an idol for every man who wanted to sing and tell stories of love. Qabbani did not become a feminist out of nowhere. He himself had lived a personal story when he was at the age of 15.

His sister, who was 25 at the time, was forced to But that doesn’t matter, I am still accused of marry a man she did not love, so she refused and hating men at times, and of trying to be one committed suicide. Ever since, Qabbani decided at other times. What a to fight for women against contradiction, don’t you social thoughts, traditions Being a male-feminist think?! Have we really and circumstances that does not make you less gotten to a point where enchain women and cause wanting to speak up means of a man, and supporting them so much agony, “Love “manning up”? Where a in the Arab world is like women does not make female raising a voice is not a prisoner, and I want to much of one after all? you less masculine either. set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and In fact, it makes you a Feminism is not a call for body with my poetry. The “upgrading” women and relationships between men better man to know the “downgrading” men. It is and women in our society difference between a call for equality; socially, are not healthy.” He said economically, politically, this about his poems. feminism and sexism. and in other aspects in life.

Being a male-feminist does Being known as one of the not make you less of a man most feminist and liberal and supporting women does not make you less intellectuals of his time made him a target for masculine either. In fact, it makes you a better many criticizers who were stuck in their own man to know the difference between feminism closed-world. Critics accused him of being and sexism. A man accusing a male-feminist of against his religion, manners, and against his being feminine (with more girlie hormones) or people and traditions. “The call to virtue is not an outsider to the movement clearly has no idea the message of art, but the task of religions and what feminism is all about. A man thinking that ethics, and I believe in the beauty of ugliness, “rape” is just a new-trend term has clearly never and the thrill of the pain, and the purity of sin. feared rape. A man accusing feminists (women) They are all true things in the eyes of the artist... of wanting to dominate men (male feminists) I want art to belong to all people like air, water, is a man who does not realize that this is not and the singing birds.” He simply defended a submissive-obedient relationship call (not a his case. Ignoring all voices, Nizar Qabbani reversed version of 50 Shades of Grey!). continued to praise women, hoping for a better and more appreciative world for us to live in.

In our lives, we have a lot of male-feminists who have influenced and touched our lives one way Abeer Allan, BROAD’s newest columnist, is a or another. Here I would like to take a moment to free-lance writer at Oasis Living Magazine. She credit a male-feminist in the Arab world. is starting a new campaign “Inspire and Make a Difference” (IMD). She is passionate about supSyrian, Nizar Qabbani is one of the most porting women and writing about them. For more admired poets in the Arab world. He wrote about details on the campaign which will be a part of a love, politics, and feminism. Qabbani defended new book please visit: abeerallan.blogspot.com women, cherished them, praised the beauty of the female body, and sanctified women. Doing so did not make him less of a man. On the contrary it made him the perfect man for many girls and

Table of Contents

and men who raise their sons to treat women as queens. I acknowledge that. I have a great father and two loving brothers. So I know, and I love them.

Words are Useless Artist: Gayle Carloss Biography: Gayle Carloss is a professional artist and beloved art teacher in Sugar Land, TX. She received her B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Texas and has sold a number of her works in galleries and auctions across the Houston area. Gayle specializes in oil and water-based paints as well as pastel. She has taught in the Texas school system for 15 years and has four wonderful daughters. Gayle believes that â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women should reveal their talents. Art is mine and I cherish it, as it has given me that area of life that has no true boundariesâ&#x20AC;?.

David

Chalk pastel on paper

Artist: Gayle Carloss

Table of Contents

Salt of the Earth

Conte and graphite on paper

Artist: Gayle Carloss

Stoic Scholar

Chalk pastel on paper

Ex Bibliothecis

By Jane P. Currie

From Loyola’s Libraries to you.

Assisting you in your search for information.

Library Science and Serendipity A bit of advanced knowledge of the Library of Congress Classification System increases the likelihood of serendipitous success on our libraries. (Elsewhere, an understanding of Dewey Decimal Classification would be needed.)

Scholars usually know just where in the Library of Congress Classification System books of interest to them may be found. This allows the scholar to enter any library’s collection and review those areas looking for titles not seen before. This can be a worthwhile and rewarding way to spend a break during a conference on a university campus or to assess the library collection during a campus visit.

Women’s studies and feminist studies titles are generally shelved in the HQs, specifically, between HQ 1101 and HQ 2030. Relying on

serendipity alone is dangerous, though, because one copy of a book can be shelved in only one place and women’ s studies is an interdisciplinary field—many books that might seem to belong in the HQs may be in another area, instead. For example, while Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985 is in the HQs, Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton is in the Es (United States history). In addition, merely browsing the shelves misses e-books, books that are checked out but could be requested, and newly received books waiting to be catalogued.

The best approach? A little (or a lot) of both methods. Scour the catalog using keywords, discovering subject headings, and linking to items that share relevant ones but when you’re in the stacks take time to browse. You may find a book that suits your purposes even better than the one you went after intentionally. I am happy to share more about Library of Congress Classification, catalog searching, or other topics.

You are always welcome to contact me by sending a message to jcurrie@luc.edu.

Table of Contents

A library’s collection can be approached scientifically with deliberate searching of a catalog, matching a provided title, author, or keyword combination with records for materials.

Another technique relies on serendipity. The two together may yield the best result.

by Karolyne Carloss

Subtle Sex(isms) Challenging the isms and schisms of politics and culture

Narrate.

Narrativize.

Re-narrativize.

Now as a longtime self-identified woman, I can’t pretend to know the pressures of what it means to be a man. But I have known a militant father, thoughtful uncles, nervous boyfriends, sardonic colleagues, goofy friends. As narratives swirled around me, I watched, eyes-wide, as they swirled around these boys and men in my life. Would the narratives that they had read in books, watched on TV become their reference points? How would they negotiate the narratives of masculinity available to them? Would they feel limited?

Would they know they were limited? Would they have a voracious voice in the back of their mind demanding something more? More of what? How can they, I, we ever know?

So come and proliferate your narratives in this tragedy that we call the commons. Let us not only adopt new narratives, but let us continue to discover new ways to perceive any one narrative.

To be certain, once when we settle on one perspective, we are necessarily ignoring countless other perspectives. Of course this exercise will beg the question, How many narratives are too many?

Is there a breaking point at which these narratives might paralyze us? Whatever the answer, if there even is an answer, we’ve survived harder stuff. So shed your narrative, find a narrative, be confident in your narrative, and as long as it’s not hurting another, live any damn narrative you please.

Table of Contents

Narratives spin around us.

In Judith Butler’s “Gender Yesterday, today, tomorrow. is Burning: Questions How would they Always spinning, always of Appropriation and negotiate the narratives informing, always limiting, Subversion”, she aptly always creating.

Post- of masculinity available declares that there is structuralist thought tends to no subject prior to its to them?

Would they feel define narratives as the key constructions, and neither to the self and the subject. limited? Would they know is the subject determined Narratives are the sites on by these constructions, they were limited?

Would which a subject is created, it is always the nexus, and consequently integral the non-space of cultural they have a voracious to one’s subject-formation. collision”. It is here at this voice in the back of These narratives are agents nexus that we can locate and work powerfully in their mind demanding the very narratives that we our lives to inform our have chosen for ourselves, something more? understanding of self. From and even the ones we have our very first moments as become dependent on. This children, we are inundated with narratives. What concept becomes clear when we consider that a are little girls made of? “Sweet and spice and child can only make sense of an object or an idea everything nice” And little boys? “Snips and snails, once they have a word for it. For instance, a child and puppy dog tails!”. As teenagers, boys and girls can only think and expound upon the notion of quickly search to find their niche, the people that trees once they acquire the word “tree”. share their narrative. “You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, In a very similar way, Butler argues that the Varsity jocks Unfriendly black hotties, Girls who narratives that are available to us at any given time eat their feelings, Girls who don’t eat anything, tragically limit our understanding of our cultural, Desperate wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually active gender, or sexual identity. We adopt and therefore band geeks...” An oft-quoted list from Mean Girls, perform the very narratives that are available, these classifications aren’t far from the invisible or often imposed on us. She, and I, argue that identifiers of the lunchroom. And then college, we need to proliferate the amount of narratives “bros before hoes”, “ovaries before brovaries”. available to us, but we also ought not depend so These expressions are stereotypes, but they are heavily on a narrative once we identify with it. We stereotypes because there is a certain truth to them. are called to narrativize and re-narrativize.

Issue of Men

Is Masculinity Changing?

by Sarah Fazal

man is supposed to look like. Gone are the hairy chested men of the 80’s. This was my initial thought when I realized how media has helped me shape my mentality towards men. After doing a quick research on the internet I was surprised to discover famous media names like ‘Cosmopolitan’ I was referred to Broad Magazine’s Facebook page and ‘OK-uk’ having previously published articles by a friend who has had her work published with on male intimate waxing! Sometime back I found them before. Scrolling down their page I spotted myself in front of a guy friend’s toiletry shelf and the title “Is Masculinity changing? How? What I chuckled to myself as I spotted a wide range of issues are affecting male identified people today facial wash and other grooming products. Caught as opposed to in the past?” And the first thing that in between another stereotype, then I thought it occurs to me is a short was the most unexpected conversation I had with Gone are the hairy-chested thing I’ve ever witnessed. my mother the other day.

But now, I have to admit men of the 80’s. This was male intimate waxing Before I get to that, allow surpassed the wildest my initial thought when I me to give you a quick ideas of my imagination. realized how media has insight to my background.

I originally hail from the helped me shape my Getting back to the topic cultural heart of Pakistan; of masculinity: a man mentality towards men.

Lahore. I come from a couldn’t even think of Punjabi family where going to salons to get hostility is always on facials, waxing, etc done boom; we are, in short, loud and proud people in the olden days; the latest beauty trends among with this knack for getting our offspring married as men will still be frowned upon by the older soon as they come of suitable age (not generalizing, generation, though it is becoming quite a regular but mostly this is how we roll). So, now all of my norm now thanks to the media. Without realizing cousins who are my age are married; no wait, even to what extent, we have allowed the media to the younger ones are on their way to get hitched. hold the reins of our mindset today. We stopped It adds a lot of pressure on me to settle down, thinking about our comfort zone and hopped onto naturally. This is when I said to my mom, “You the bandwagon of the latest trends. I’m not saying know what puts me off the most about Pakistani that self-grooming is not a good thing but let us try men? It is the fact that they are so hairy. Shows and not let an outside source control our minds. how so not well maintained they are.” To which my mother, someone who is known for control Sarah Fazal is a Pakistani based in Gulf. She recently over her emotions, passed a laugh and said, “You graduated with a degree in Public Relations & can always ask him to wax.”

Communications and has a gift for writing. Sarah believes in humanity above everything and that we And it made me think about how media has all as humans have all sorts of potential to carve portrayed the modern man in my mind. Men our own niches regardless of our racial identities. today are trendy, they don’t fear to wear what We are all of the same flesh and blood. they like. You are more likely to spot men with dyed hair, or men wearing pink now than before.

Brad Pitt is known to match his hair color to that of his partners, male models tend to opt to do their eyebrows, mani-pedicure has fast caught on as a male trend. We have become so immune to watching stars like David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo that for us they are what a ‘perfect’

[IM]

Table of Contents

Recently, BROAD Magazine had a post on its Facebook page that read: “Is masculinity changing?

How? What issues are affecting male identified people today as opposed to in the past? Answer at broad.luc@gmail.com!”

by Abi Wilberding

Educated Guess Asking How, Why, and What the Hell?

Feminist Fires Tim’M T. West, Poet, Activist, Musician Major Achievements:

Inspired By:

Tim’m T. West is an author, poet, activist, and rapper, who describes himself as “a selfdescribed “black, gay and a feminist, POZ and working class.” He has degrees from Duke, The New School, and Stanford Universities and has spent much of his adult professional life between secondary & postsecondary teaching and Youth Advocacy and HIV Education & Prevention. After serving as a Program Coordinator for St. Hope Foundation’s FUSION CENTER for YMSM (Houston, TX), Tim’m taught Philosophy and English at Houston Community College before relocating in the summer of 2011 to Chicago, IL. On Independence Day 2011, Tim’m released his 4th LP “Fly-Brotha”. He is also traveling and performing his one-man show “Ready, Set, Grow: a coming of age story” In early 2012 Tim’m assumed the position of Associate Director of Youth Programs at Center on Halsted.

He says “Quite generally, LIFE inspires me,” as well as the young people he works with, Essex Hemphill, KRS-One, Cornel West, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Pablo Neruda, Amiri Baraka, and many more.

Is An Inspiration to:

Young gay men of color, queers in the music industry, feminist fathers, anyone struggling with masculinity and what it means to be a man.

Tim’M grew up in Texas and Arkansas, where he went through life as a self described popular jock type. He says he “grew up as a very masculine-identified boy” but knew he was homosexual from a very early age. His father, however was a “minister, coach, and former military man...who identified hypermasculinity as the only way.” His father also abused his mother, who Tim’M had a close relationship with, and this experience has led him to have strong feelings about what it means to be a nurturing, present, and feminist father today. Tim”M didn’t make his homosexuality known to anyone until he was in college at Duke University, where he completed his B.A. He went on to complete many other degrees and became a scholar, educator, and activist. Creatively, Tim’M has always written poetry and co-founded the queer rap group Deep Dickollective, and went on to start a solo rap/hip-hop career.

Importance to Feminism:

Tim’M T. West is creating a space for dialogue about the intersectionality of oppression for gay, black, feminist, masculine men in many different sectors of society. He identifies as a feminist, and incorporates feminism into his hip-hop music, poetry, and activist works, and identifies as a feminist father. Tim’M’s valuable contribution to social service programs and activist movements about the issues of homosexuality in the African American community have impacted and improved the lives of countless young people with whom he works or has touched through his art and courageous life story. He is a paradigm of male feminism and how a male-feminist identity can strengthen one’s sense of masculinity.

Table of Contents

Personal Life:

Issue of Men

Rediscovering Fatherhood: An Existential Crisis in Understanding Masculinity

by Brock Bahler

It was a “normal” sort of day in my household.

After a long day watching the two kids on my own—my wife was at work—I left in the evening for an academic-related meeting. Our four-year old protested that I was going to be out. He either feels like he’s missing out on something or he is upset that his routine of reading books and cuddling with Dad before bed has been hijacked.

I leave on a bit of a sour note.

After the dishes are done, I make my way to bed.

As usual, just as I’m dozing off to sleep, I hear that familiar shrill cry emanate from the nursery. Off to go find the pacifier.

The move to domestic life may not seem like a satisfying replacement for “manly” visions of backpacking trips, Friday night parties, downing cases of cheap beer, or off-color jokes. However, every man who has made the shift to become a father has experienced a wild and radical lifestyle shift that occurs as a result.

Off to the nursery I go. I recover her pacifier, which she has flung onto the floor in protest of her imprisonment. I rock her, sing to her, and cradle her, her petite body molding to the curves of my own. Time expands, as these minutes feel painfully long. And yet, I cannot take my eyes off her, nor can I place her now sleeping soul back into her crib without a brief kiss and long breath full of the scent of her crown.

Now that both kids are (thankfully) sleeping, it’s downstairs to do the dishes, the ignored, sink full of dirty plates and glasses not only bearing evidence of the remnants of the day’s food offerings but also speaking volumes about the fullness that each day offers. Brother Lawrence learned to practice the presence of God while doing the dishes. Usually, while I’m doing the dishes I have to keep one ear

* * * The move to domestic life may not seem like a satisfying replacement for “manly” visions of backpacking trips, Friday night parties downing cases of cheap beer, or off-color jokes. However, every man who has made the shift to become a father has experienced a wild and radical lifestyle shift that occurs as a result.

Having a child is not like bringing home a new houseplant that will sit in the corner or adding some photographs to the wall.

The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty depicts it well when he writes, “The arrival of the child represents an intervention in the relations between adults. It provokes a change, not a simple addition without any modifications, in the dynamic relations of the two parents.” The intervention— or irruption—of becoming a parent constitutes a cataclysmic and disorienting transformation. In this new stage, parents learn to function—often only minimally—with less sleep. Date nights or Friday night parties are swapped out for trips to the grocery store so the kids can get a free cookie at the bakery. Time with adult friends is overruled by excursions to the playground. At least the jokes are similar: young fathers discover an amazing obsession for talking about poop.

Yet the shift is not only in lifestyle practices; we experience a radical shift in personal identity,

Table of Contents

Two hours later I return just after my son’s usual bedtime. Before I can nestle next to my exhausted and already-sleeping wife, the creaking noise of the wood stairs alerts my son of my presence. He sits up, looks through the doorway of his bedroom, and spots me. I go in to lie down with him for a few minutes or until he falls asleep (sometimes, exhausted, I fall asleep with him in his tiny twin bed). This time, ten minutes later, my eightmonth old daughter wakes up and lets off a shrill cry from the nursery.

and eye alert to ensure the eight-month old doesn’t eat the dirt around our houseplant. It may not be the most contemplative moment, but amidst the insanity, finishing a load of dishes feels like a miraculous accomplishment.

meaning, and how we understand the concepts command children to do something without any of masculinity (and femininity). Grappling with explanation; their TV show preferences come these changes to identity and significance can be first. In a few words: cerebral, angry, powerful, extremely fruitful or troublingly complex. Some dictatorial, impatient, and selfish. parents completely throw themselves into this new role, embracing it fully as their supreme Again, this is not to be construed to mean that vocation, forgetting the only characteristics I’ve whatever plans they gained from my father are In certain external ways, might have had before, negative. But these negative it has been relatively easy and settling into welltraits, like sins serving as defined parental roles. punishment on to the third to call into question the Others still have goals and fourth generations, and dreams they want to so-called conservative, they are addictive habits maintain—a certain level that become so ingrained “biblical” definitons of of education, attainment in us that we believe them manhood and womanhood intrinsic to our identity and of wealth, ability to travel the world, or running impossible to change. For that dominated the a business—but to do sure, we could also define upbringing of my wife and masculinity in terms of so requires a difficult balance where parents are strength, leadership, and me.

We have established tempted to treat the child responsibility. But after an egalitarian approach as an inconvenience or watching my wife give birth hindrance to such goals. without any anesthesia, I that works although it Furthermore, if one has know that strength appears does make for a very not thought about the in different modes among us prospect of being a father both. After I’ve watched my complicated schedule. before the actual fact, wife succeed in work and being thrown into it has the initiative she takes for the effect of switching a reset button in our mode our family’s schedule, I don’t doubt her leadership of existing. As if on autopilot, we either raise our capabilities. And after years of her doing our taxes, children in the same manner and characteristics I won’t deny which one of us is more fiscally as our own father or take an approach that is the responsible. extreme opposite. Further complicating matters, to pursue a third way of fatherhood would require In certain external ways, it has been relatively easy space for reflection and time for conscientious to call into question the so-called conservative, choice-making—and such free space and time are “biblical” definitions of manhood and womanhood extremely rare for a young father. that dominated the upbringing of my wife and me. We have established an egalitarian approach All too often—for better or worse—my autopilot that works—although it does make for a very mode has often been to conform to the practices complicated schedule. We both work part-time of my father. These inclinations speak volumes (while I am finishing my PhD), both watch the kids, about the narrative that has been told regarding both drop off and pick up the four-year old from masculinity for many generations (at least in preschool, both are involved in the kids’ bedtime American and conservative cultures): Men (fathers) routines, both help with cooking (although my wife are expected to be stressed and in their own world is much better), and so forth. In some respects, at when they come home from work; they are not times our roles are even reversed. I take the kids questioned when they value work priorities over to the library or the park during the day (and am the “interruptions” of their children; they are often one of the only fathers there), while my wife warranted special permission to become angry at works. I do the laundry and sweep the floor (my the slightest thing when they are tired; they can wife detests cleaning), while she figures out the

author beckons his or her readers to take what has been read and remake and recreate them—and hopefully to make them and the world better.

Some mistake this linguistic turn by highlighting only the side of absence and subjectivity, lamenting the purported path of arbitrary readings, relativism, and nihilism that such a philosophy commences.

Evaluating and rethinking the more deep-seated (They, for instance, forget that deconstruction and personal characterizations of masculinity, is not just destruction but also construction.) however, has been much harder and difficult They then blame this philosophy for part of the journey. As a philosopher, I’ve lived in the aporia of reason behind the utter breakdown of the nuclear many existential crises regarding matters of ethics, family in our society, as if the marriages of the faith, religion, and the self; yet, the existential 1950s were the symbol of perfection. What these crisis of knowing what it means to be a father has lamenters want is a rigid, well-defined, and been one of the toughest. easily achievable definition of manhood and womanhood. One might wish for far more simple * * * demarcations of roles, just as one wishes that texts could be understood without any mediation A brief theoretical or translation. But like digression (aka, cerebral): reading, life is not that One might wish for far Many contemporary simple; rather, we all fluidly more simple demarcations go in and out of all kinds philosophers who have studied language—Jacques of roles that shape our selfof roles, just as one Derrida, Emmanuel identity. At work, we feel wishes that texts could be Levinas, Maurice the weight of our employer Merleau-Ponty, Hansdoling out demands while understood without any Georg Gadamer, and Paul simultaneously having mediation or translation.

Ricoeur being chief among others in our charge. them—have pointed At home, we feel the But like reading, life is not out the ways in which a responsibility of raising our that simple; rather we all serious reading of texts children while often feeling requires both a necessary that it is they, who so easily fluidly go in and out of all presence and an absence, are mirrors revealing for kinds of roles that shape both an attunement to the us who we truly are, who objective and subjective have so much to teach our self-identity. sides of interpretation. The us. We may be assigned a author is close to us, the new leadership position reader, causing us to see at work, at church, or a his or her point of view, influencing our lives, and service organization that alters the way we look illuminating new possibilities; yet we cannot get at others and others look at us. We may wear inside the author’s head and cannot help but read multiple hats at once even, choosing to coach a into the text our own situation and interests. As little league baseball team that includes not only a result, all reading of texts, and all language for our own son (or daughter!) on the team but the that matter, results in an endless display of open neighbor’s kid as well. We are used to fluidity in possibilities. The most sincere faithfulness in our understanding of our self and our relations reading a text requires a kind of betrayal—and it with others. So it should come as no surprise that must be this way. No author would wish that we that same plasticity reveals itself in fatherhood and merely parrot or regurgitate the very same words, motherhood, masculinity and femininity. ideas, or stories that they have enacted; rather, the

Table of Contents

budget. Even so, we do feel the pressure among some circles that what’s to be expected of us sooner or later is that I become the breadwinner while my wife serves as the homemaker. But all in all, these external behaviors that might be used to define our roles have not been that difficult—even if we do wish for a more simple lifestyle at times.

Don’t get me wrong: I wholly assent that there are skills he had for good—but only to realize that the quite obvious differences between my wife and I, unique attitudes, behaviors, and personalities of or at least, it is quite clear that our children have my own children call for a variation of these skills. come to define and understand us based in part by But it also means making a narrative that is better our differences. My wife’s mystical breast-feeding than it was before, adding to the story of fatherhood powers, and her ability to peacefully lull our infant not just the baggage of former generations but gifts fast asleep bears testimony to this. However, all too that can be shared to my children who will one often, the attempts to establish distinct definitions day be a father and mother themselves. between men and women, fathers and mothers, have been made by utilizing precisely the wrong What if, instead, being a father and a man meant characteristics. Traditionally, the father has been being emotionally present and engaged, speaking depicted as the disciplinarian and the mother softly (it does turn away wrath—most often, one’s as the nurturer, for instance. In reality, however, own), instructing with gentleness, listening with these characteristics ought to be qualities of both interest, and treating children with dignity and mothers and fathers—even if their style or way of respect? What if being a father involved answering embodying these attributes vary. Such attempts, I my children’s “Why?” questions when I ask them believe, have been one of the primary reasons the to do something, allowing them to have a say in the deep-seated and seemingly intrinsic conceptions life and activities of our family, and valuing their of manhood have purported interruptions on remained vigilant even if the same level I value my What if, instead, being a much of our culture has own personal pursuits? father and a man meant readily accepted the idea What if we traded, “Do of mothers working outside being emotionally present what I say, not what I do,” the home or men with for looking our children in and engaged, speaking infants strapped onto their the eyes and truly asking chests. But these everyday softly (it does turn away for their forgiveness when depictions barely scratch we fly off the handle? wrath - most often, one’s the surface.

Trying to become this new own), instructing with Cerebral, angry, powerful, kind of father and man has gentleness, listening with dictatorial, impatient, and been a difficult journey selfish. filled with many potholes interest, and treating (there are lots of them here children with dignity and What if there was a better in Pittsburgh) and detours story to tell, a more humane (it’s true, men don’t like respect? way to being a man? asking for directions).

However, those late nights This question is why the philosophers and their holding, cuddling, and kissing my children account of texts have had a profound influence on have been an important step in the process. The how I think about what it means to be a father and challenge in those moments is not only to be a man. If I am to take seriously the act of respecting physically there but mentally and wholly present, my own father—including acknowledging the enjoying the moment and showing they are valued. fact that, he like, me was bumbling through and For instance, do I spend time asking my son about making mistakes, often simply reverting to the his day or am I glued to my cell phone or hurrying autopilot mode of acting like his own father—then the process? the only true act of honoring his life is to recreate fathering anew in a different register, in my own Children learn from very early on in infancy that circumstances. This means conscientiously a hierarchy of values exists in the world. While appreciating the things he did well and imparting Piaget and other child psychologists have long them to my own children. It means utilizing the debated at what point a child can think rationally—

Table of Contents

constructivists place it after eight months at the tell them whether to expect a father that is distant so-called “object permanence” stage, while and cerebral or emotionally close, angry or gentle, Piaget claimed a child doesn’t really have logic impatient or patient. until about seven years—I have seen how quickly my For decades, while mothers children not only sense ...our mutual involvement were defined as caregivers an object’s meaning but and fathers were absent with raising our children also its value as we have and off at work, child has called into question introduced new things to psychologists concluded them. We introduce them the notion of the infant that infants attach most to the world of things securely to their mothers being securely attached with rattles and mobiles and do not even come to hanging over their heads. to one parent over the know their father as father But by four or five months, until many months after other but it hasn’t called they are quite aware that they have an established what you show an interest into question the fact that relationship with their in is most certainly more mother. The image was both of us offer different important than the toys portrayed that infants prefer they’ve been given—the qualities and advantages to their mothers and that cell phone, the TV remote, fathers play a minimal role the nurturing of the child the food on your plate, in childrearing. In contrast, older brother’s toys, and our mutual involvement from which the child has so forth. But this interest with raising our children the opportunity to choose. in such objects is directly has called into question the related to the people in notion of the infant being their world that assign them value. From the very securely attached to one parent over the other— beginning, we are intersubjectively related and but it hasn’t called into question the fact that both dependent on others. Our son provided a clear of us offer different qualities and advantages to the example of this understanding of value when his nurturing of the child from which the child has the sister was born. Not long after we had brought her opportunity to choose. When our baby girl wants home from the hospital, he was already bugging to eat plus the combination of the soothing and us with questions such as: “Which one of us do calming power that comes with being in intense you love more?” proximity to her mother’s breast, I am no match to my wife. Yet, our children have discovered that we Indeed, in sharp contrast to Piaget and others, offer different forms of nurturing and comfort. studies today show that just a few days after birth, infants already recognize familiar faces, sounds, This was displayed beautifully (and rather and smells. They bask in that familiarity, which unexpectedly) to us one night at bedtime when provides them comfort and support. All this is to at six months, our daughter, ready to go to sleep, say that they have no problem detecting when held her hands out and lunged in my direction. they are not valued, when they are set down on She chose the cuddling powers of her father the ground so the parent can attend to something over the feeding powers of her mother. And this else or when the things that interest them have is something to celebrate. Even later in life, our not been equally valued as the parents’ activities. four-year old son has shown that he prefers one Children quickly become clued in to cultural of us over the other depending on the situation. values, as culture invades their life from day Sometimes this depends on what type of activity one: lights, bottles, the layout of their homes, he wants to do. I’m more athletic than my wife, so clothing, the crib. As a result, from day one, we if he wants to play baseball or some other sport, begin narrating a story to our children. By so many he always comes to me. He also loves cooking implicit and explicit forms of communication, we food (and sampling it) with my wife. In this sense,

we may have traditionally defined roles: the father the playmate, the mother the cook. Yet, when he scrapes his knee or wants to cuddle on the couch and read a book, he might ask for either one of us without any explanation.

We need to redefine masculinity so the traits that are most important for being a father are not seen as a lack in manliness but the very characteristics that are central to being a man.

Women in our culture are often told that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no higher calling than being a mother. Being a mother is certainly important, but this message is often the continuation of a doublestandard in our culture. On the one hand, not all women are led to this calling, and nor should they feel inferior for choosing an alternative path in life. On the other hand, men need to be told that fatherhood is an extremely important calling as well. We need to redefine masculinity so the traits that are most important for being a father are not seen as a lack in manliness but the very characteristics that are central to being a man.

This requires a sexual revolution that not only brings about change on the surface, on the level of employment or familial roles (e.g., wives that work, husbands that cook), but constantly contests that stories that we have continued to tell ourselves and tell our children.

Brock Bahler is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA where he resides with his wife, Amber, and their two children. He also works as an adjunct professor for Seton Hill University and as an editorial assistant for Duquesne University Press.

[IM]

Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education

My very individuality is defined in a set of relations.

This is my basic reality.

When I care, when I receive the Other… there is more than feeling; there is also a motivational shift.

Taking relation as ontologically basic…means that we recognize human encounter and affective response as a basic fact of human existence.

When I receive the Other, I am totally with the Other. …when I spend time in dialogue with my students, I am rewarded not only with appreciation but also with all sorts of information and insights. I could easily, and properly, say, ‘I am receiving’ as, ‘I am giving.’

Thus, many of the ‘demands’ of caring are not felt as demands. They are, rather, the occasions that offer most of what makes life worth living.

Table of Contents

“

Quote Corner

BroadSide Expressions in Poetry via Street Literature Style

What Male Privilege Did to Me

by Grace Trujillo At 18 years of age I became very aware of Male Privilege.

I began to create distance between Me and Them.

I had had it with their privilege.

Their privilege had divorced my parents.

Their privilege had taught me God is a man.

Their privilege allowed my dad to talk down to me Their privilege socialized me to accept my “intrinsic” limitations.

Their privilege sexually assaulted me at seventeen.

Their privilege damaged me.

Their privilege caused me to grow real angry.

I had too many unanswered questions, Several explosive accusations, And endless reasons to be hateful towards men.

I told myself I would never get married.

I would never have children.

I would build a career so I would never have to rely on any man for my survival.

I would build a world for myself with no men.

I turned bitter.

I locked my heart down.

I couldn’t see past my fury.

I made assumptions: All men are evil.

All men have the same mentality.

No man is capable of compassion or empathy.

Men exist only to disappoint.

But then, I met three men who changed my life.

These men were the opposite of what I had always known.

At first I could not accept them as they were; gentle, kind, and unentitled.

I waited for them to show their true colors.

But time passed and they stayed the same; wonderful.

My anger began to waver.

I had new questions such as, “Can some men be loving?”

My Wall of Hate began to crumble.

“Is there hope?”

I will not say all of my anger has disappeared.

The damage male privilege has caused is done.

But I find myself wanting to live free of hate.

I have reopened my mind.

And unchained my heart.

I don’t want to make assumptions anymore.

I realize Male Privilege will never go away.

It is infused into every part of this society.

But not every man is affected by male privilege.

Men can make their own choices.

This is what those three men taught me.

Grace Trujillo.

Social Work major A wild youth chasing visions of her future, Opening her mind to new ideas, and looking to laugh everyday.

Table of Contents

It was male privilege that hurt me.

Not all men claim alliance with privilege.

I mustn’t blame all men for pain inflicted by a few.

WSGS graduate student Nicole Carrascoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s podcast series, Negotiating Space is an experiment in feminist media and storytelling, focusing on facilitating narratives from marginalized communities. The idea was born from Nicoleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desire to use media as a means to make feminist ideas and dialogue accessible to everyone. You can follow Negotiating Space on Twitter, @ NegotiateSpace, read the blog and listen to episodes at http://negotiatingspace.tumblr.com/, and connect on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ NegotiatingSpace.

Words Are Useless Artist: Nick Luevano

2012; colored pencil; 22â&#x20AC;?x25â&#x20AC;?

Biography: Nick Luevano is a Printmaking major at the University of North Texas in Denton. He loves Jesus and enjoys typography, hiking, and music. Nick has a secret desire to become a mountain man in the woods of Colorado.

Table of Contents

Untitled

Issue of Men

Masculinities and bell hooks

by Krista

That’s one of the reasons I so love bell hooks’ work. She refuses to be timid. She refuses to allow intimidation or the fact that she’s not a member of a group to prevent her from writing. Instead, she recognizes that being part of a patriarchal world means that she knows about expectations of masculinity, even if she will never live up to those impossible standards.

about masculinity, and how those of us who can never measure up to ideals are damaged by being and participating in those systems. While she addresses different facets of masculinity in these books – power, race, class, gender, sexuality, and history – she never tries to separate them. Rather, she weaves them together without making them the same thing, so that readers are able to follow their connections and are often forced to wrestle with what we think about these issues. She never pretends to be objective, and resists the idea that anyone can be objective. She is effusive in both praise and criticism, and has a way of bringing her readers along with her as she moves through multiple topics at a fairly fast pace.

For thinking about masculinity, men, maleness, and all the other topics this issue addresses, I highly recommend a trio of hooks’ books: Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2000); We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (2003); and The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004). Hooks’ work is persistently intersectional; she explores, in all three of these texts, what it means to be male, what it means to be part of a system that expects and assumes certain things

Her forceful and unapologetic style isn’t everyone’s favorite; some people find her combative, unsupported in her claims, and too “hostile” to be really educational. Even so, these are wonderful, thought-provoking books for individual or group reading. I highly recommend using any of these for teaching, but only for people ready to really wrestle with both the issues and their students as they encounter privilege and oppression in new ways.

I am intimidated by writing anything about masculinity. It’s not one of my strengths; I can talk queer theory or theology, disability anything, or feminism until you sneak out of the room because you just don’t care any more. But masculinity? I’m not so comfortable.

[IM]

I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn’t identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.

Yeah, all isms (sic) feed off one another but at the top of the food chain is still the white, corporate, macho, strong ox male. Not redeemable as far as I’m concerned. I mean, classism is determined by sexism because the male decides whether all other isms still exists (sic).

Its up to men. I’m just saying that people can’t deny any ism or think that some are more or less subordinate except for sexism… I still think that in order to expand on all other isms, sexism has to be blown wide open… but there are thousands of green minds, young gullable (sic) 15 year old boys out there just starting to fall into the grain of what they’ve been told of what a man is supposed to be and there are plenty of tools to use. The most effective tool is entertainment.

Kurt Cobain I like the comfort in knowing that women are generally superior and naturally less violent than men. I like the comfort in knowing that women are the only future in rock and roll. I like the comfort in knowing that the Afro American invented rock and roll yet has only been rewarded or awarded for their accomplishments when conforming to the white mans standards.

I like the comfort in knowing that the Afro American has once again been the only race that has brought a new form of original music to this decade.

I like to complain and do nothing to make things better. I like to blame my parents generation for coming so close to social change then giving up after a few successful efforts by the media & government to deface the movement by using the Mansons and other Hippie representatives as propaganda examples on how they were nothing but unpatriotic, communist, satanic, inhuman diseases, and in turn the baby boomers became the ultimate, conforming, yuppie hypocrites a generation has ever produced.

Table of Contents

“

Quote Corner

Alum Alert Re-connect with WSGS Alumnae

Tell us a little about yourself and your time at Loyola.

My name is Sara Cait Rogan and I finished my WSGS MA in May 2012. I took several years off after my undergraduate degree. I actually never thought I would go to graduate school, but after trying a few different career tracks interspersed with jobs in retail I decided I wanted to become more specialized in a specific field. I had always been interested in gender issues and I started looking at programs in the Chicago area. I found Loyola’s MA program and it seemed like a perfect fit.

How were you connected to WSGS? What are some of your favorite memories from the program?

My first interaction with WSGS was through an informational interview with the incredible Dr Prudence Moylan, who was at that time the director of the WSGS graduate program. Speaking with her confirmed my suspicions that a degree in Women’s Studies and Gender Studies would introduce me to a whole new way of thinking and connect me with other people that were interested in similar topics. I felt an immediate connection with the other students in my first class that all had such different backgrounds and future life goals. It really felt like an instant community. I think some of my best memories are from that class (Feminist Methodologies 402). I looked forward to the weekly discussions, always came away feeling as if I had learned so much and really enjoyed myself at the same time. The end of each semester was a little rough, as I am a natural and accomplished procrastinator. However, the papers always managed to get finished and turned in.

Tell us what you have been up to since graduation.

Since graduating I have started a PhD in Women’s Studies at the University of York in the United Kingdom. I have changed the topic of my dissertation from my original plan, but feel much better about my current project which will look at

the subjective experiences of women working in film and television production in the United States.

I am currently finishing up the first chapter of my dissertation, the Literature Review, and will soon move on to articulating my methodology. So far it has been an amazing experience!

What do you consider the strengths and weaknesses of your education? What could have been better? What has helped you? How do you apply feminism in your everyday life?

I think the overarching strength of having an MA in WSGS and a grounding in feminist theory is that it encourages me to critically consider other people’s perspectives and my own privilege. I look at a problem in a more nuanced and informed manner

Cait Rogan M.A. 2012

Do you have any suggestions for current Loyola students? What do you miss or what would you have done differently?

If you are currently in a WSGS program, my advice is to read as much as humanly possible. I know this is difficult (I still struggle with it in my PhD program), but you may never again have access to the resources you do now. There is a wealth of knowledge in the libraries, use them! I am still using the Loyola libraries for research with my alumni access. Also, I know sometimes it can be difficult being a feminist when you read something awful that a Senator said, or you hear about something terrible happening to people somewhere in the world, but remember to breathe through the despair, rage against the injustices of the world with your fellow students, and then remember all the great things about being a feminist. By being a feminist you have already made a statement about your level of intelligence. You’re pretty f-ing smart.

Alum Alert contributed by Julia DeLuca

“ Table of Contents

and do not expect any answer to be simple. The education I received at Loyola has provided me with a new world view that will serve me for the remainder of my professional and personal lives. I bring feminism with me everywhere now. There isn’t a day that it doesn’t impact my thoughts, interactions, and/or relationships.

As an interdisciplinary field it would have been great to have more cross-listed course offerings, but after working as a graduate assistant to the program I understand how difficult it can be to work out such arrangements with other departments and I know the faculty in WSGS are constantly working to create more options. I really like that the program was flexible enough to allow each student to shape his/her own experience. I thought it was great that I could focus on my specific interests in many different class contexts.

We want you to Submit!

BROADContributor Mission: Guidelines Broad’s mission is to connect the WSGS program with communities of students, faculty, and staff at Loyola and beyond, continuing and extending the program’s mission. We provide space and support for a variety of voices while bridging i) Feminist Consciousness: communities of scholars, artists, and activists. Our editorial mission is to provoke

(a) recognizes all voices and experiences as important, and not in a hierarchical form. thought (b) takes for an the self and does not assume false objectivity. andresponsibility debate in open forum characterized by respect and civility.

Principles:

(c) is not absolutist or detached, but rather, is more inclusive and sensitive to others.

ii) Accessibility:

WSGS Mission:

(a) means utilizing accessible language, theory, knowledge, and structure in your writing. (b) maintains a connection with your diverse audience by not using unfamiliar/obscure words, overly long sentences, or abstraction. (c) does not assume a specific audience, for example, white 20-year-old college students.

Founded in 1979, Loyola’s Women’s Studies Program is the first women’s studies iii) Jesuit Social & Effort: program at aJustice JesuitEducation institution and has served as a model for women’s studies

(a) promotes justice in openhanded and generous ways to ensure freedom of inquiry, the programs at other Jesuit and Catholic universities. Our mission is to introduce

pursuit of truth and care for others. feminist scholarship across the disciplines and the focus professional schools; students (b) is to made possible through value-based leadership that ensures a consistent on to provide personalinnovative, integrity, ethical behavior, and the appropriate balance between justice and fairness. challenging, and thoughtful approaches to learning; and to

(c) focuses on global awareness by demonstrating an understanding that the world’s people promote social justice.

and societies are interrelated and interdependent.

Expectations and Specifics: Activism and Academia: This special themed issue on Activism & Academia explores: how activism and academia are related, whether or not they are compatible, what it means to • We promote accountability of our contributors, and prefer your real name and your preferred title (i.e., Maruka Hernandez, CTA Operations Director, 34 years J. Curtis Main, Loyola graduate in WSGS, white, 27 years old), but understand, terms of safety, privacy, and controversy, beold, a mother part ofof4; orthe academy, whatstudent types of education are lackinginfrom academic if you desire limitations. We are happy to publish imagery of you along with your submission, at our discretion. disciplines, access to education and rights to education, how academia relates to • We gladly accept submission of varying length- from a quick comment to several pages. Comments may be reserved for a special “feedback” section. In theto real thereforisa aparticular disconnect between universities andto society at large, order process world, and include aifsubmission issue, please send your submission at least two days prior the desired publication date. howa we can make what we learn Look for the [A&A] symbol for •and Please include short statement of context when submitting imagery,matter. audio, and video. onofour theme!

•contributions We appreciate various styles scholarship; the best work reveals thoughtfulness, insight, and fresh perspectives.

• You may request to identify yourself by name, alias, or as “anonymous” for publication in the digest. For reasons of accountability, the staff must know who you are, first and last name plus email address.

• Such submissions should be clear, concise, and impactful. We aim to be socially conscious and inclusive of various cultures, identities, opinions, and lifestyles.

BROAD People:

• As a product of the support and resources of Loyola University and its Women Studies and Gender Studies department, all contributors must be respectful of the origin of the magazine; this can be accomplished in part by ensuring that each article is part of an open discourse rather than an exclusive manifesto.

• All articles must have some clear connection to the mission of the magazine. It may be helpful to provide a sentence or two describing how your article fits into the magazine as a whole.

• The writing must be the original work of the author and may be personal, theoretical, or a combination of the two. When quoting or using the ideas of others, it must be properly quoted and annotated. Please fact-check your work and double-check any quotes, allusions and references. When referencing members of Loyola and the surrounding community, an effort should be made to allow each person to review the section of the article that involves them to allow for fairness and accuracy.

• Gratuitous use of expletives and other inflammatory or degrading words and imagery may be censored if it does not fit with the overall message of the article or magazine. We do not wish to edit content, but if we feel we must insist on changes other than fixing typos and grammar, we will do so with the intent that it does not compromise the author’s original message. If no compromise can be made, the editor reserves the right not to publish an article.

• All articles are assumed to be the opinion of the contributor and not necessarily a reflection of the views of Loyola University Chicago.

We very much look forward to your submissions and your contribution to our overall mission.

Please send your submissions with a title and short bio to Broad People through broad.luc@gmail.com.