PRESENTERS:  Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco (Staff)  and William Parkhurst (Staff)

Though patriarchy's primary harms are centered on women and gender minorities, men are also harmed by patriarchy. This presentation will examine how toxic masculinity arises from patriarchal norms, how it harms men, and why we should develop a feminist masculinity in response. Men are often expected to act strong and tough, deny many emotions, and use violence to address conflict. Though these norms confer privilege, they can also do great damage to men by teaching them to stifle normal emotion and forgo connections for the sake of portraying what bell hooks calls, in her book Feminism is for Everybody, a "sexist masculine identity."¹ After identifying these harms and their connection to patriarchy, we will turn to thinking through a feminist-informed view of masculinity that rejects sexist notions of what it means to be a man. After the presentation, we will have a question on our final PowerPoint slide. Participants will break up into small groups of three to five people and try to answer the question and write down their answers. After approximately five minutes, we will come together to discuss the question as a collective group and compare the answers given by each individual group. This is an excellent way for participants to consider their own experience and check it against the experience of others privately before having a more public discussion. This allows participants to process what they have learned and apply it before exploring those possibilities with all participants.  Discussion-based Presentation

1. bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), 68.