The UFC cage fight scheduled for June 14 on the White House lawn has been dismissed by some as harmless entertainment and condemned by others as authoritarian theater. But there’s another way to understand it: as a political strategy. By bringing one of America’s most hypermasculine spectacles to the nation’s most recognizable symbol of power, Donald Trump is signaling to his base—especially…
When South Carolina’s abortion abolitionist bill, the Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1095), was voted out of committee and onto the full Senate floor in late April—“an unprecedented move toward locking up women who have an abortion,” according to Dana Sussman in _Slate_ —it raised a question: How much influence have abortion abolitionists gained within the broader antiabortion…
When I first watched Curry Barker’s _Obsession_ , I assumed the horror was obvious. Not the supernatural curse at the center of the film but the decision that sets it in motion: a man deciding he is entitled to a woman’s love, to a woman’s body, regardless of her autonomy.
Online, women have begun calling this kind of story “incel horror”—a growing label for films in which the true source of…
Within hours of winning the Republican nomination for the Texas Senate election, Attorney General Ken Paxton was attacking his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, as insufficiently masculine to represent their state in Washington. In his acceptance speech, Paxton rolled out the nicknames “Low-T Talarico,” “Tofu Talarico,” “Six-Gender Jimmy,” and “James Tala-freak-o,” reminiscent of the…
Despite the extensive misogyny in both shooters’ manifestos, much of the reporting on the San Diego mosque shooting overlooked how male supremacism intersected with xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and white supremacist ideology. Both shooters identified the perpetrators of the 2014 Santa Barbara mass killing and the 1989 Montreal massacre among their inspirations, while one referred to…
A new slate of cultural offerings presents divergent ideas about the struggles men and boys face today—and how to resolve them.
I am not alone in receiving unsolicited emails—especially as a professor, public writer and thinker, and woman who dares to speak her mind. Often, the emails are thoughtful, engaging and sometimes deeply moving expressions of gratitude that warm the heart. However, from time to time, there are the crude, crass and obtuse intruders, thrusting insults and even threats into our inboxes. These…
It converts substantive disagreement with the consensus framing into a personality defect, a gender pathology, specifically.
The post “Masculine Behavior Bad for the Planet,” Says Phys.org. We Read the Paper. appeared first on Watts Up With That?.
In an April press conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth led a prayer for the mission to rescue U.S. airmen downed in war on Iran. He invoked Ezekiel 25:17—vowing, “I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger”—though much of the prayer was adapted from a monologue by Samuel L. Jackson’s hit man character in _Pulp Fiction_. A month earlier, reports had emerged of…
Speaking in early February, while the nation was still reeling from the killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, Jackson Katz, a leading voice in gender violence prevention and masculinity studies, and Loretta Ross, a celebrated Black feminist scholar and cofounder of SisterSong, examined the deadly ways misogyny and racism intersect in Donald Trump’s…
The cheeky advice doesn’t come from just any old man—this is one of Germany’s top police officers. Dirk Peglow, the head of the Federal Association of German Detectives, spoke with news channel Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen’s Dunja Hayali on Monday to break down Germany’s latest crime statistics, which came out earlier this month. The data found that while registered cases of crime went down at…
Even though I did not know Nancy Metayer, my heart is utterly broken by the loss of her life and the violence of her death. The night before her funeral, I joined a virtual _vèyè_ in her honor—a space to keep watch, to remember her impact and to hold one another in communal care.
That same day, news broke about Dr. Cerina Fairfax, also killed in her home. I did not know her either, and still, I…
Rep. Eric Swalwell has ended his California gubernatorial primary campaign and resigned from Congress amidst a flurry of allegations about sexual assault and misconduct that involved female members of his staff, interns and others. When the story first broke, many of his fellow Democrats were quick to denounce the now-former legislator’s alleged behavior.
This is an altogether familiar—and…
I had always read James Baldwin’s declaration “I want to be an honest man and a good writer” __ as a statement of artistic ambition—the kind of thing a young person, defining themselves for the world, says in order to be taken seriously. It comes at the end of “Autobiographical Notes,” the introduction to his first essay collection _Notes of a Native Son,_ where he declares that he has no…
A Cape Town NGO, Heroes Academy, is using mentorship, socio-emotional learning and life skills to reshape boys’ understanding of masculinity and help prevent gender-based violence in township communities
What kind of man would sue the state of Arizona on behalf of the women here? Dr. Paul Isaacson.
Thanks to his recent win court (with legal lead the Center for Reproductive Rights), women in Arizona are no longer forced to go through a 24-hour period between scheduling and getting an abortion, which is an outdated practice that suggests women can’t make rational decisions. They also no longer…
Amir from Chicago, Illinois, grew up hearing the word brolic, meaning “extremely muscular, physically imposing” from his father, who grew up in the Farragut Projects in Brooklyn. The word has clear New York City roots, with an early notable appearance in a track from the Notorious B.I.G. album Long Kiss, where he rhymes brolic with […]
_The Dads_ , a new feature-length documentary, follows the fathers of trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive children as they weather the rapid escalation of anti-trans legislation in the United States over the past two years. Directed and produced by Luchina Fisher, the film debuted last month at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
The film bears witness to parents’ struggle with…
_The Dads_ , a new feature-length documentary, follows the fathers of trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive children as they weather the rapid escalation of anti-trans legislation in the United States over the past two years. Directed and produced by Luchina Fisher, the film debuted last month at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
The film bears witness to parents’ struggle with…
Ever since I’ve been writing about slut-shaming, I’ve been called a slut and a whore.
In the 1990s, the age of doorstopper phone books (the kind with white pages and yellow pages), I received alarming letters delivered to my mailbox. In the early 2000s, the letters morphed into emails. And when I began posting on Instagram, the insults followed me there, too.
Over three decades, the insults…
No Ws for Good Men — The journalist’s new documentary sees him dive headfirst into the toxicities and machinations of the male influencer economy. But when young creators are monetarily incentivised to make more and more outrageous content, who really is to blame?
On March 11, Netflix released _Inside the Manosphere_ , a new documentary by Louis Theroux that hit the No. 1 spot on Netflix. It is an uncomfortable but necessary examination of how the manoverse—a loose conglomeration of men’s rights and red pill influencers, podcasters and politicians—exploits and harms young boys and teenagers.
At the heart of the documentary is a profound inequity in the…
There’s toxic masculinity, and then there’s this: This man’s body has a penis and testicles hanging right off of it. This is NOT a good…
Hard Feelings — Fury from the latest generation of Gladiators joins our column on masculinity, speaking to Robert Kazandjian about her new book, her close relationship with her late father, and being a role model for both young boys and girls.
Following the illegal strikes of war against Iran, the White House transitioned from traditional diplomacy to digital propaganda, releasing a series of highly stylized videos that blurred the lines between state-sanctioned violence and Hollywood entertainment. By splicing real military strikes with iconic imagery from films like _Gladiator_ and _John Wick_ , the administration did more than just…
"Now this looksmaxxing gymcel gets wig snatched?"
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The post “Now I’m stressmaxxing”: Who is Androgenic? The viral wig snatch that’s dividing social media appeared first on The Daily Dot.
The Epstein files scandal has all the elements of a gigantic media spectacle. It encompasses everything from true crime to political intrigue, and offers a peak behind closed doors into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. It has more than a little sex and violence.
It’s a conspiracy theory come to life.
Media commentary has explored seemingly every angle. Or has it? On closer examination,…
“They said, ‘Skeddadle!’ The word ‘skedaddle.’”
Last November, during his address before McDonald’s investors, President Donald Trump—as he is wont to do during public speeches—went on one of his weird tangents. “And that plane went ‘pshh,’ like this,” he continued, diving his hand downward in an accompanying gesture. “You know, when it drops a bomb, it goes down very steeply, because that gives…