essay

  WORD LIMIT- 6-7 pages maximum. total 1400-1500 words.

OBJECTIVE:

To show an understanding of how structures/systems of misogyny and white supremacist result in violence against women, LGBT, and racialized communities.

Requirements:

Drawing from at least 2 readings from the course, and one film or video from weeks 8-12, explain the structure of gender-based or white supremacist violence. Use direct quotes only. Do not paraphrase.

Describe concrete experiences of actual individuals and situate them in social structures. These structures include the criminal justice system (police, courts, prisons), media, education, the family, or the economy. Or, these structures also include dominant beliefs about identity categories of race, gender, and sexuality. Concepts such as misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, distribution of life chances (Dean Spade), rape culture, or hegemonic masculinity are some of the key terms that you can use in your essay (you need only one, but these are all options). 

MATERIALS:

You can use any film or video covered in the course and any of the recommended or required readings. Lecture slides also provide valuable information and should be scanned for relevant information (hint: if you discuss topics that are covered in slides but do not incorporate the information in the slides then this will impact your grade). You can also use any of the discussion questions as a starting point for your essay.

This is not a research paper. Do not add research materials unless you get approval from the instructor. 

CITATION STYLE & BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Write your essay in scholarly format using Chicago Manual Style citations (in-text or footnotes). Information for bibliographies is included in the syllabus. 

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

1. Include your name, student number, the date, course number, and the professor’s name on the top left of the first page.

2. Include a title for your work. 

3. Use 12 point Times New Roman font and double space your work.

4. Insert a footer or header with your last name and the page number. 

FILM-

1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMyzPZ_K7_Y

readings are below in pdf.

use, above film and these pdf for essay, no outside resources needed.

Masculinity, Rape Culture,
and Violent Crime
SOCI 210 Winter 2021

Rape Culture

● Society where rape is common & mostly unchallenged
● Victim Blaming: Dominant beliefs around sexual assault

that cast suspicion on

women

and question their life
histories

● Slut Shaming: accusing women of being sexually
promiscuous or wearing inappropriate clothing that led
men to commit rape

Hegemonic Masculinity

1. Based on ability to shape
the world according to
one’s desires/will.

2. Others are understood as
objects that need to be
coerced to following male
desires

3. Ability to control
environment becomes
masculine ideal.

John Oliver

Last Week Tonight
With John Oliver.
30 September
2018

Judge Brett
Kavanaugh

Nominated for the
Supreme Court of
the United States.

Accused of
multiple accounts
of sexual assault
and rape.

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/25/metoo_
founder_tarana_burke_on_sexual

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/25/metoo_founder_tarana_burke_on_sexual

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/25/metoo_founder_tarana_burke_on_sexual

Kavanaugh
Senate
Hearing,
October 2018

Aggrieved Entitlement

The benefits that you (the white male) believed were
yours by a promise, but were snatched away by unseen
forces.

● Belief that following the rules should be rewarded
● Belief that there is a new, unjust system that

bypasses white male ‘merit’ in favor of women and
non-whites

Haider & the
Feminine (559)

“Male violence
functions …
guardianship and
policing [of a]
patriarchal order.”

● “When that violence is challenged…it produces a
disillusionment with the normative apparatus of
power…[which] transforms masculinity into
something toxic…Rage is the praxis of toxic
masculinities.” Haider, 559.

● Brett Kavanaugh. Senate Judiciary Hearings,
Sept. 27, 2018.

Omar Mateen

Shooting at Pulse
Nightclub, 12
June, 2016

Orlando
Shooting

Democracy Now!
With Amy
Goodman and
Soraya Chemaly.
14 June, 2016.

Hyper-
Masculinity

An embrace of
physical strength
and gender role
aspects of
hegemonic
masculinity

Aggrieved Entitlement &
Men’s Rights

● Belief that men are suffering from ‘feminazis’ and from
non-whites
○ Feminazis: feminist attempt to take power from men, and a belief

system based in misandry (term coined by Rush Limbaugh)
● Alan Baron, Men’s Manifesto, 2001

○ Men must defend male domination/patriarchy as the natural order
of things

Rush
Limbaugh

The “feminazi” and
men’s penis size

Men are victims of
feminism, which is
taking their
“natural” claims to
power

Red Pill
Philosophy

Belief that only a
special class of men
see the truth of a
feminized society

Keanu Reeves & Laurence
Fishburne. The Matrix. 1999.

Manosphere

Internet and
media as home to
extensive
misinformation
about the
‘suffering of men’ E.g. The belief that men suffer from an

‘invisible’ forms of domestic violence

Ian Ironwood. The Manosphere: A New
Hope for Masculinity (2013).

Toxic Masculinity: Debbie Ging, pg. 3

● Subordinate (gay) and marginalized (geek/nerd)
masculinities perceived as having no impact, power
or threat, when they often hold anti-feminist &
misogynistic outlooks.

● Marginalized: Believe they are the “nice guys,” but that
women only reward “Alpha males” who are “not
nice/womanizers”

Marginalized Masculinity and Entitlement

● Negotiation: reject parts of hegemonic masculinity
(the alpha male), but embrace others

● Claim a right to sex and thus to women’s bodies
● Inability to secure sex is a violation of their rights
● Produces a form of toxic masculinity/hatred of

women

Geek Masculinity. Debbie Ging, pg. 5

● Rejection of aspects of hegemonic masculinity
○ “The Alpha Male” and the “Gentlemen, Elliott Rodger”

● Often targeted and bullied by alpha males, they are
unable to recognize their own negotiated use of
hegemonic masculinity

● Use of misogynistic language (9) and attacks online
● Intention & effect of reasserting masculine dominance 11

Antifeminism
& Toxic
Masculinity
“Decline of Males”
rhetoric confronts
institutionalization
of feminism.

Alek Minassian

(2018),

Elliott Rodger (2014), &
#Gamergate/Anita
Sarkeesian (2014).

Gamergate 2012

Toxic Online
Environment of
Harassment,
Threats, and
Masculine
Entitlement

Rebecca
Solnit 2014

Elliott Rodger

Full Version:
https://www.dem
ocracynow.org/20
14/5/27/yesallwo
men_rebecca_sol
nit_on_the_santa

Alek Minassian

Van Attack in
Toronto, 23 April,
2018.

Alek Minassian

Special K’s
“Own It”

Empowerment-
Advertising
Campaigns:
Constant
marketing churn
urging women to
love themselves

Charlottesville,
2017 and El
Paso, 2019

White
Supremacist
Violence

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/corne
l_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/13/ibra
m_x_kendi_guns_in_america

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/cornel_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/cornel_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/13/ibram_x_kendi_guns_in_america

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/13/ibram_x_kendi_guns_in_america

Utoeya. 22
July 2011

Warning: Video
includes
descriptions of a
massacre. Please
feel free to leave
class if you don’t
want to watch

Utoeya,
Norway

Anders Breivik
kills 69 people,
mostly youths
members of the
Labour party

Anders Breivik

Identified
multiculturalism
and Islam as a
threat to European
civilization

Targeted what he
called “cultural
Marxists and
feminists

Breivik: Defend White Society from
“Cultural Marxists”

● Feminism seen as a threat to society
● Synonym for “political correctness”: a “suicidal ideology

based on appeasement of Islam”
● Must defend the nation against the genocide of whites
● Portrays the 1950s as a golden age when “men treated

women like ladies, and ladies devoted their time and
effort to making good homes, [and] rearing their
children”

Belief that Feminism Harms Social Order

● Women “want it all. They want more benefits and
rights for themselves. They have been awarded with
everything they could ever dream of achieving. They
now have complete matriarchal supremacy
domestically and exercise substantial influence in
politics”

Women as the Enemy

Breivik continues: “you must embrace and familiarise
yourself with the concept of killing women, even very
attractive women” since they make up the majority of the
“cultural Marxists”

We must “reintroduce the father as the authority figure
and family head”

Jihadism or Christian Patriarchy?

His vision of a restored social order looks exactly like his
portrayal of jihadism and Islamic society.

He discusses how his “knights” and jihadists share similar
aims, and how they should negotiate a dividing up of the
world into separate spheres: what the far right in America
now calls “racialism”