The Men Taking Classes to Unlearn Toxic Masculinity

11
644

From Science of Us: The Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault, have partnered to offer a class called Rethink Masculinity. The course helps those who identify as men examine their own biases and behaviors and learn about consent, communication, empathy, vulnerability, emotional labor, and violence.

“‘We’ve spent many years addressing survivors and victim behavior, but ethically, and in terms of efficacy, that’s incomplete,’ he adds. ‘We have to address the roots.’ And while course evaluations show that his students typically absorb what he teaches, Mankowski notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the class is making a real-world difference: ‘It may change beliefs about gender,’ he says, ‘but does it change behavior?’

It’s not a given, but it’s not impossible, either. Research consistently shows that holding sexist attitudes is associated with gender violence, for example, so it’s not unreasonable to hope that better beliefs can lead to better behavior. Studies have also demonstrated that bystander intervention training — a subject covered in Rethink classes — can be effective at reducing the incidence of sexual assault.”

Article →­

 

Support MIA

MIA relies on the support of its readers to exist. Please consider a donation to help us provide news, essays, podcasts and continuing education courses that explore alternatives to the current paradigm of psychiatric care. Your tax-deductible donation will help build a community devoted to creating such change.

$
Select Payment Method
Personal Info

Credit Card Info
This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Billing Details

Donation Total: $20 One Time

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

11 COMMENTS

  1. “Toxic masculinity”? Do you realize how misandrous this expression is? Are there classes to cure women of their “toxic femininity”? When a woman falsely accuses a man of sexual assault, is her feminity “toxic”? When secret services, political parties, and journalists make sex scandals out of thin air to bring down public figures, without evidence, without legal process, without presumption of innocence, do women involved in this sordid process have a “toxic femininity” and deserve to be “reeducated”?

    What hypocrisy! What double standard!

          • Why not?

            Here is quotes of a letter to “The Cut”, the website in which masculinity is described as “toxic”.

            This letter is called “I hate men”.

            I only change the words “men” by “black men” and “women” by “white people”.

            “All this on top of the fact that most of black men in my neighborhood have hit on me at one point or another, and like every white people, I can’t leave the house without getting harassed and I am constantly underestimated for no reason other than the fact that I have a white skin.”

            And the original paragraph is:

            “All this on top of the fact that most of my male role models have hit on me at one point or another, and like every woman, I can’t leave the house without getting harassed and I am constantly underestimated for no reason other than the fact that I have ovaries.”

            You see, you don’t have to change many words to highlight the paranoiac fascism of the conservative feminism.

            “I really, really try to do things right and be open and friendly and receptive to the idea that someday a man might treat me like a human, but it just gets harder the older I get, and I can feel myself hardening as a result.”

            This is truly the words of a full of hatred, sadomasochist, misandric woman.

            https://www.thecut.com/2017/11/ask-polly-i-hate-men.html

          • Right, how dare this lady expect to be treated like a human being. /s

            Why can’t you read this person’s account of being constantly objectified, harassed, and belittled without making it about you?

          • This woman says she is almost 27 years old. In 27 years, it is simply impossible she has never met a single man who respects her. This would mean good men are so rare, that in 27 years of life it is possible to never meet them.

            If we compare with racism, it’s a bit like living in Africa, and saying you never met a black person who’s good enough to have a positive relationship with him or her.

          • Except that we are not comparing this to racism because that is a misdirection. Why is it that you feel entitled to dictate how this person should feel about her experiences? Why does it bother you so much that this woman whom you have never met is wary of men?

          • Misandrous women often take the path of racism. In France, conservative feminists do not hate men “in general”, but rather Arab men. In Germany, the press talked a lot about New Year’s Eve in Cologne, during which hordes of immigrant men allegedly raped and sexually assaulted over a thousand women. All this was wrong: a coup by the police, the press and the far right.

            https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/11/05/hamb-n05.html

            If to defend herself, a woman say: “I do not only hate Arab men, I hate all men!” It’s not really better.

  2. Can we extrapolate then that Sylvain is swimming in ‘water’ he is oblivious to?

    Thanks, uprising, for trying.

    Working at Planned Parenthood for years taught me just how common molestation and rape were…and my own personal experiences (my mother was raped, my sister was raped, I’ve damn near been raped TOO MANY times), my circumscribed ambitions and activities…no, I would never want to be a man, but when I read essays like I did last week at another site basically saying that the way teenage girls dress ‘these days’ they are asking to be raped, it’s obvious how steeped in the patriarchy we all are. Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about *power over*. Power is a drug…