On Wednesday October 4th at 7:00 p.m., I attended a speaker that talked about locker room talk and toxic masculinity in Ritsche Auditorium. Byron Hurt is a published writer, anti-sexist activist, and lecturer. He combines his award-winning documentary films with a dynamic speaking style to create questions, re-imagine, and redefine gender roles. To start off his presentation, he talked about the different disasters that are happening in the world. He mentioned the victims from the numerous hurricanes. He then talked about the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. He used this topic to segue into how 98% of mass shootings are done by men. Later on he mentioned that millions of people in the world suffer from mental health and never hurt
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From there he talked about how boys and men are under educated on what it means to be a man. They get shown how to be a man from movies, music, and pornography. In all of these, the men are portrayed as being violent and aggressive. To show the audience a visual, Byron had an activity to get us engaged. He drew a box on a piece a paper and asked the men in the room to shout out words that they heard from others to portray being a man. Some of the words or phrases that were said by men where, ‘don’t cry, be tough, aggressive, man up, grow a pair, and don’t be like a girl’. The speaker then opened up for the females in the room, to add anything that wasn’t said. The one thing that was added from a female’s perspective was ‘boys will be boys’. The next part of the activity was to shout out words or phrases that men would be called if they were to act outside of the box or ‘norm’ for a man. A few examples that were said are, ‘weak, no balls, emotional, girl, and homosexual.’ The common thing that all of these words that were said have in common is that they relate to women and homosexual individuals. Therefore, if men think homosexuals and women are less than them, then it is easier for them to disrespect and dehumanize them. Men are learning at a young age to dehumanize women through porn. Porn is a huge business and most of the porn that young men watch, the women in them are getting dehumanized by the male. Therefore, these young men are learning that this is the way they should treat women
From there he talked about how boys and men are under educated on what it means to be a man. They get shown how to be a man from movies, music, and pornography. In all of these, the men are portrayed as being violent and aggressive. To show the audience a visual, Byron had an activity to get us engaged. He drew a box on a piece a paper and asked the men in the room to shout out words that they heard from others to portray being a man. Some of the words or phrases that were said by men where, ‘don’t cry, be tough, aggressive, man up, grow a pair, and don’t be like a girl’. The speaker then opened up for the females in the room, to add anything that wasn’t said. The one thing that was added from a female’s perspective was ‘boys will be boys’. The next part of the activity was to shout out words or phrases that men would be called if they were to act outside of the box or ‘norm’ for a man. A few examples that were said are, ‘weak, no balls, emotional, girl, and homosexual.’ The common thing that all of these words that were said have in common is that they relate to women and homosexual individuals. Therefore, if men think homosexuals and women are less than them, then it is easier for them to disrespect and dehumanize them. Men are learning at a young age to dehumanize women through porn. Porn is a huge business and most of the porn that young men watch, the women in them are getting dehumanized by the male. Therefore, these young men are learning that this is the way they should treat women