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Pink or Blue // poem by Hollie McNish // directed by @dypka // @holliepoetry

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BBC Two - No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?, Series 1, Episode 1

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Is the way we treat boys and girls the reason we haven't achieved gender equality?

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I love working with students and I have always been willing to be comparatively less wealthy and secure than friends working in the private sector so that I can do this. So of course, like many of my colleagues, I don't want to go on strike and ruin student education. I also do not want to lose 14 days of pay, meaning I will need to borrow money from friends and family to be able to keep my home and pay my bills. I care about my students' education and feel deeply conflicted about taking any action which compromises it. Students might well ask if that could really be true, and if I feel that way, why am I willing to do it? After all, it is my decision, and it is in my power not to take this action (although by doing so I would be undermining the democratic vote taken by my union). This is why I would like to explain my position.

Why I am going on strike anyway

Like many of my colleagues, when I voted for strike action on this issue of academic pensions, I thought we would be striking for a day or perhaps two in line with previous action. When the announcement of 14 strike days was made, I was devastated. But for those who say they understand our point of view but think we should find another way to make our point, please remember that if we walk away from our union and what they ask of us, we have no-one to protect us or our rights as workers.

I studied for seven and a half years to qualify for an academic job, like most of my colleagues. I worked in three jobs during my PhD to get there. I was able to find enough teaching work to support myself for two years after I finished my PhD, although I was mainly hourly paid and struggling to make ends meet, with no benefits or pension. Unlike the friends I graduated with who had gone on to work in the private sector, I had very little money to spare and could not afford the same kind of lifestyle as them. Whilst they started putting money into their pensions in their early 20s and were already building up some security, I did not start having enough money to be able to do that until around 10 years later. When I received an offer for a permanent position, I was about to walk away from the higher education sector because I could no longer face the stress and anxiety of never knowing whether I would be able to pay my bills or where I would be working the following term. Even though that was a tough time for me, again I was lucky. Many academics now work for five years or more on precarious contracts with no benefits before getting a permanent post, and some never do.

The opportunity to be able to start building a pension, to finally qualify to pay a mortgage, to only have one work email address to deal with, to know month to month and year to year that I would have enough to live on, was a huge relief, and of course, a huge privilege. Of course, it was my choice to keep going in higher education; I could have left and pursued a less precarious career with higher wages and better benefits. Given how long it took me to get to a secure point in life, for me personally to be told that my pension is likely to be reduced by around £10,000 a year ( or around £208,000 less in total) was a terrible shock.

But there is more to it than this. Employers are maintaining that in some ways this new pension scheme is better because we will have more choice and freedom as individuals to decide where to invest our pension pot when we retire. In reality, very few of us want this so-called freedom. We are not investment experts who know how best to work the stock market, and the idea that our livelihood in retirement will be determined by how well the market is doing on the mandated day on which we retire is terrifying.

But again there is more to it than that. As a lecturer who tries to encourage students to critically examine the society we live in, my employer is forcing me to accept the further neoliberalisation, financialisation and marketisation of university culture against my will. This is the same culture that led to the introduction and increase of the tuition fees paid by students; the fees I marched against even as my own time in education was ending. In a letter to my MP, the Vice Chancellor of Sussex University legitimised the change to our pension by saying he did not think it was fair for young students to pay huge fees to support wealthier and older people (such as myself). This is the same rhetoric that is being used across the UK with the aim of dividing students and staff. I hope you can see that in a situation where lecturer pay has decreased by 14.5% in real terms since 2009 whilst Vice Chancellors' six-figure salaries have risen, your fees are not all going towards our wages or pensions. Furthermore, Vice Chancellors are maintaining that our pension scheme has become unaffordable, but this is based on research with a dubious methodology that has been broadly criticised.

Why I think you should support me

I would like to ask my students to think critically about the information they are receiving from university management, as well as commentary on the strike on social and other media. Read the critiques of the methodology that has been used to back up the idea that the universities can no longer afford to guarantee our pensions. I understand that students are angry and frustrated that they are being forced to suffer and lose their contact with lecturers. But I would like to ask you to think about why you value that time in the first place. I hope it is because you value our specialist knowledge, you trust our guidance when, for example, it comes to telling you what a sound methodology is, and that you think you can learn something from us that will be of value to you. If you trust and value our ability to be critical thinkers and evaluate situations, please consider trusting also that we are have evaluated the consequences of our actions on you as well as for ourselves. I personally do not want higher education to progress any further in its decline to a service industry where students are forced to behave like consumers, and where working in them becomes even more precarious than it is now, leading to brilliant people walking away from a career that simply isn't worth it any more.

This is why I would like to ask students to think about the larger context of this dispute and the issues of precarity and overwork affecting education professionals today. With over half of academics in the UK now working on hourly paid non-permanent contracts, as the Guardian put it, university management are increasingly adopting a 'Sports Direct model' for their workforce. Academics in the UK and beyond regularly work on evening and weekends to fulfil their workloads. UK education professionals and teachers work on average 11.9 unpaid hours a week. At my own institution, in the last staff experience survey, large percentages reported being unable to deal with their workloads and not feeling valued by their employers (although I can't cite the figures, because the results have mysteriously been removed from staff intranet pages). Nonetheless most are dedicated to student welfare and education, and if we can't do everything we need to in order to provide this we will use our evenings, weekends and holidays to make it happen - even though we don't feel valued or supported. It may or may not be a concern to you that education professionals are also experiencing unprecedented mental health problems and many struggle to maintain families, friendships and relationships.

At the moment, you are likely being told that your university cares about your education and that management will do everything they can to make sure it is not disrupted because of the strike; that it will be 'business as usual'. But a university is a place where staff and students engage in a two way process of learning, research and enquiry. Students and staff ARE the university. The business will still be running, but if there is no two-way, mutually engaged work happening then this is not a university to my mind.

It is within the power of the university to return to the negotiating table and have the strikes called off. Even those who do not support lecturers taking action can probably see that this would be a good thing right now.

Be aware that the university managers whose salaries you fund are intimidating your lecturers because they want us to be too scared to take action. In addition to voting to take strike action when we know we will not be paid for the days we withdraw our labour, we also voted to take part in action short of a strike.

Action short of a strike can include 'working to contract', when academics agree to only work normal working days and not take on additional voluntary duties. Our employers know that if we only work the hours we are paid for, vital tasks like marking your assignments (enabling you to complete your degree in a timely fashion) may not take place according to schedule. They know this because they also know that our goodwill leads us to work beyond our paid time so that you can finish your degree. They are therefore taking this opportunity to remind us that they are legally allowed to pay us absolutely nothing - to keep 100% of our pay - if we take part in action short of strike and only work to contract. They know that most of us would not be able to maintain earning nothing for an extended period, so they are just reminding us that ultimately they can break us and they don't have to take our views into account.

I feel powerless, vulnerable and scared. But I also know that students, whose views university management do care about (remember that your feedback determines their ranking and government income), have a lot of passion, huge capacity for independent thinking and the critical skills to see what is happening in their universities. That's why I think my students are fantastic, and why I believe they will refuse to be duped into thinking that this strike is a selfish action undertaken by people who just don't care about their education and their success in life. The opposite is true; in fact we probably care about it more than you know.

If you don't support me

I understand and I don't really blame you. And don't worry: whether or not you support me, as soon as the strike is over, I will continue to spend my evenings, weekends and holidays helping you to achieve what you deserve. I will mark your essays at Christmas and do my research on Sundays, and in the future when you need a reference from me to help you get the job you want, I will stay up late at night to make sure it goes in on time. I will spend time with you going over your CV years after you have graduated, because whatever you think about my pension I still want you to succeed. But if these pension cuts go through, there will be fewer and fewer people like me in the system to support students going forward.

What you can do if you do support me

Please write to your Vice Chancellor, the Vice Dean for Education, and your MP (if you have one) to tell them that you want the strike to be called off, and you know that they have the power to make this happen. Please use the skills you have already learnt in articulating your position, organising and managing others, and learn from your peers elsewhere in the UK. Students, not managers, will be the ones who ultimately determine the outcome of this dispute; and I for one will love them all the more.

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Why I don't want to go on strike - Anon. - Medium

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I love working with students and I have always been willing to be comparatively less wealthy and secure than friends working in the private sector so that I can do this. So of course, like many of my colleagues, I don't want to go on strike and ruin student education.

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An informal discussion between a group of men expressing their individual experiences of masculinity

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What is Masculinity? | That's What He Said

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How do you know you've become a man? In the premiere episode of That's What He Said, the men talk about when they knew they were a man as well as when they questioned their masculinity. This is a must-see video for every man and soon-to-be man.

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Thinking critically about the portrayal of masculinity in films

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Thinking critically about the portrayal of masculinity in films

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"are they absorbing the story that a male hero's job is to defeat the villain with violence and then collect the reward which is a woman who has no friends and doesn't speak"

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Article written by Jordan Stephens from Rizzle Kicks about his acknowledgement of male privilege as well as the need to break down the idea that men cannot be emotional.

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Mon 23 Oct 2017 01.59 EDT Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 10.02 EST

The past two weeks have reminded us of the extent to which women suffer at the hands of the patriarchy. As women share their stories and many nod along, what about us men?

Any man who has read a woman's account of harassment or assault and thought "that doesn't apply to me": what you're experiencing in that moment is the exact privilege, power and entitlement that women are finding space to battle against. We have subconsciously benefitted since we were born from patriarchal privilege - in many ways it's invisible to us. I've been outspoken in my support for women's rights, but I'm not afraid to admit that I've fallen foul of the patriarchy's malicious hardwiring. But in confronting it, rather than continuing to abuse my power, I've found more inner peace, understanding, love and truth then I ever could have done had I continued as I was.

The abuse of power is a plaster for sadness and prevents self compassion

I've been fortunate to experience most financial brackets, and I promise you that nothing material brings happiness. No house, watch, car, phone, television, necklace brings peace. Those tangible things just allow you to feel more comfortable. I'm not saying don't slob in front of the television or don't go out and take drugs - I won't condemn anyone who makes those choices. What I'm saying is that we often partake in these activities when we'd rather not confront our emotions. And it's not OK when the desire for these things comes at the expense of other people's safety or freedom. The abuse of power is a plaster for sadness and prevents self-compassion.

I was raised predominantly by a strong mother, and I'd like to think that I journey into the world with good intent. I want to love, spread joy, help people and inspire. But I've still found myself in pockets of self-destruction. Extended periods of time taking cocaine, excessive drinking, excessive working habits, starting numerous projects at once, reading so many books that I feel self-righteous and, most painfully, finding that whenever I entered into intimate relationships I would end up selfishly self-destructing. That self-destruction led to a breakdown of trust in people I cared for and in myself. I had been wounded by the patriarchy in thinking even for one second that this behaviour was acceptable.

If you're one of these guys who takes pride in jumping from girl to girl or brags about breaking hearts, you have no idea what it feels like to truly love and trust yourself. And, knowing how I feel now, I am sad that structural abuse might prevent acceptance and understanding. I've recently confronted and processed my own childhood trauma to understand what it was inside me that would unconsciously destroy a desire for trust and intimacy. I've come to realise that it's because I'm more terrified of rejection and having my trust broken than I ever could have previously imagined.

I desire trust and intimacy just as much and perhaps even more intensely than those I've shared love with. It's been an incredibly painful realisation. I believe that the false power gifted to me as a man in our society didn't allow me the space to understand, cry, and work through the pain of my past and duality of my present. This idea that male vulnerability is undesirable - it covers up the pain of so many troubled boys who wanted more hugs from their mum or have missed the company of their dad, or were victims of abuse or loneliness or just generally felt as though they had no time, space, company or even the words to describe how they felt.

It's our responsibility as we become adults to acknowledge this pain and gain compassion for ourselves and acceptance of others. But for men in particular, when the patriarchy says that it's OK to grab a woman's ass, or tell her what to do, or watch too much porn or deny her space - and you accept this as a way of treating another human being - you deny yourself the opportunity to understand why you desired that comfort of power in the first place. The ego wants dominance and control. And the male ego is currently everywhere.

As far as I can see, this toxic notion of masculinity is being championed by men who are so terrified of confronting any trauma experienced as children that they choose to project that torture on to the lives of others rather than themselves.

What's even more upsetting is that often when men allow themselves to feel this pain, it's so new to them that they kill themselves. We live in a society where men feel safer killing themselves than acknowledging pain. Accepting the patriarchy from a place of false benefit will prevent you from ever truly loving yourself or understanding others. It's OK to feel sad. It's OK to cry. It's OK to have loved your mum and dad growing up. It's OK to have missed them or wanted more affection. It's OK to take a moment when you're reminded of these truths. When you allow your brain to access these emotions, it knows exactly what to do. So nurture yourself. Talk honestly to the people around you, and welcome the notion of understanding them more than you have ever done before.

* Jordan Stephens is a writer/performer best known as one half of British duo Rizzle Kicks
Topics

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Toxic masculinity is everywhere. It's up to us men to fix this | Jordan Stephens

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Mon 23 Oct 2017 01.59 EDT Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 10.02 EST The past two weeks have reminded us of the extent to which women suffer at the hands of the patriarchy. As women share their stories and many nod along, what about us men?

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The recent Florida shooting has controversially been linked by some to 'toxic masculinity'.

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CLOSE

After 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz was accused of gunning down 17 people at a Florida high school last week, comedian Michael Ian Black started a thread on Twitter that sparked a vitriolic debate about the role of gender in gun violence. It began with the tweet, "Deeper even than the gun problem is this: boys are broken."

Black's tweet has been liked nearly 65,000 times. In an interview with NPR on Sunday, he elaborated.

"I think it means that there is something going on with American men that is giving them the permission and space to commit violence," he said. "And one of the main things we focus on correctly is guns and mental health, but I think deeper than that is a problem, a crisis in masculinity."

Many people on Twitter praised Black for his take.

Critics accused of him of overgeneralizing, and of demonizing boys and men.

The problem Black identifies is one feminists have been talking about for decades. It's called toxic masculinity, the stereotypical sense of masculinity that embodies behaviors, such as denying help or emotions, which psychologists and sociologists say are harmful to men and to society. It's the things in our culture - from toys given to movies watched to messages parents consciously and unconsciously send - that tells boys and men "being a real man" means repressing feelings and consistently demonstrating strength and dominance.

"We often talk about gender in terms of women ... getting the short end of the stick. ... Well, masculinity isn't easy either," Jennifer Carlson, a sociology professor at the University of Arizona who studies gun politics and gender, told USA TODAY after the mass shooting in Las Vegas last October. "That's not your ticket to the good life. It isn't easy to be a man in the United States. Demands put on men - whether it's to be the protector, to be the provider, to respond to situations in certain ways, to prove yourself as a man - end up being not just outwardly destructive but also inwardly destructive."

A 2017 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found many norms around gender, what's expected of boys and girls, become entrenched in adolescence and have negative impacts that carry into adulthood.

Among consequences the study noted when boys conform to gender stereotypes:

Engaging in physical violence to a much greater extent than girls

Dying more frequently from unintentional injuries

Being more prone to substance abuse and suicide

Having a shorter life expectancy than women

Data shows gun violence is disproportionately a male problem. Of the 97 mass shootings in which three or more victims died since 1982, only three were committed by women (one of those being the San Bernardino attack in which a man also participated), according to a database from the liberal-leaning news outlet Mother Jones. Men also accounted for 86% of gun deaths in the United States, according to an analysis by the non-partisan non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation.

Experts say culture plays a big role in why men are so drawn to guns and why they're so much more likely to die by them.

GUN DEBATE: It's not really about what you think

After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the National Science Foundation asked researchers to look at what is known and unknown about youth violence. Published in 2016, the report found masculinity is a factor that cannot be ignored.

"Young men may be particularly sensitive to cultural influences on masculinity in adolescence when they are physically maturing, particularly in the context of popular media that glorify violence and domination of others," researchers wrote. "The least physically developed young boys may lose out in pecking orders that value height, big muscles, athletic prowess, and mature looks. Guns could become a great equalizer in this tournament of recognition."

In a Q&A published this January in the journal Signs, masculinity expert Michael Kimmel said the term "toxic masculinity" is now so loaded he chooses to frame the problem for men somewhat differently.

"There's going to be a time in your life, if there hasn't already, when you are going to be asked to betray your own values, your own ethics, your own idea of what it means to be a good man, in order to prove to others that you're a real man," said Kimmel, founder and director of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook University.

In his interview with NPR, Black was asked what he thinks healthy masculinity looks like.

"I don't know. I mean, I really don't," he said. "I know that I only started feeling comfortable in my own skin as an adult man in my 40s when I stopped trying so hard to - and this is going to sound counterintuitive - but be a guy."
You may also be interested in:
ANALYSIS: Men pay a steep price when it comes to masculinity

EXPERTS: 'Guns don't kill people; men and boys kill people'

RESEARCH: Gender stereotypes are destroying girls, and they're killing boys

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2oiiJcj

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Are boys 'broken'? Another mass shooting renews debate on toxic masculinity

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CLOSE After 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz was accused of gunning down 17 people at a Florida high school last week, comedian Michael Ian Black started a thread on Twitter that sparked a vitriolic debate about the role of gender in gun violence. It began with the tweet, "Deeper even than the gun problem is this: boys are broken."

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Lecture at Leeds University by Kim Warren

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Lecture at Leeds University by Kim Warren

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On Race and Resistance.

No need to book just turn up.

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2018 race and resistance lecture tickets

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Women of the "Darker Races" as Global Citizens: Mary McLeod Bethune, the Founding of the United Nations, and Emergence of Black Feminism In this address, Kim Cary Warren examines the emergence of black feminist thought through the intellectual biography of Mary McLeod Bethune, a leading advisor on race relations and the founder of the largest African American women's organization in the US in the early twentieth century.

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Documentary on how there is an increasing pressure for men to obtain a perfect body, and the pressure to be almost 'hyper masculine' through body building.

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Watch Netflix movies & TV shows online or stream right to your smart TV, game console, PC, Mac, mobile, tablet and more.

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Comedy podcast about male privilege by The Guilty Feminist http://guiltyfeminist.com/episodes/ episode 60 - Male Privilege with Kate O'Donnell.

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https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/20/robert-webb-autobiography-how-not-to-be-a-boy-peep-show

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Twitter thread on gun violence and masculinity

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Twitter thread on gun violence and masculinity

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Journal on football hooliganism & masculinity

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Journal on football hooliganism & masculinity

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Men Like Us, Boys Like Them: Violence, Masculinity, and Collective Identity in Football Hooliganism

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Explores how masculinity has changed in the working class since the 1980s.

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Why I'm done trying to be 'man enough'

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Why I'm done trying to be "man enough" | Justin Baldoni

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How Movies Teach Manhood

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Documentary on being a British man in 2015

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Reggie Yates' Extreme UK: Men at War (BITC)

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This is "Reggie Yates' Extreme UK: Men at War (BITC)" by roelanddoust on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Grayson Perry made a documentary series on masculinity - it was on All 4 but it's also on Youtube

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Lecture

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London School of Economics and Political Science

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Masculinities: Raewyn Connell, All About Women 2016

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How can we better understand the dilemmas of men and boys today? http://sydneyoperahouse.com/ideas Subscribe and find more videos from Ideas at the House: http://www.youtube.com/ideasatthehouse Get a new talk every week on our podcast: Audio - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/sydney-opera-house-ideas-at/id640445035 Video - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/sydney-opera-house-ideas-at/id640444896 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/IdeasAtTheHouse Twitter - https://twitter.com/ideasatthehouse