Gender doesn't just mean women

I re-watched the first ten minutes of “Tough Guise 2” three times because I feel it was such so well written, I wanted to listen over and over. The culture and glorification of violence in America is deeply troubling to me. I recently criticized Piers Morgan on Twitter, and he re-tweeted me. Hundreds of his fans, who I assume are mostly British began to tweet back at me photos of Sandy Hook, Donald Trump and jokes about Americans and guns. I didn’t defend myself against the jokes at the USA’s expense regarding gun violence, because they were all right. We have an obsession with our guns and masculinity in America is tied very closely to violence. Just look at the violence that is encouraged at Donald Trump rallies (a man encouraging and inciting violent actions in other men).

I married into a gun loving family, and this past Christmas, my 12 year old nephew was given a gun because it’s a transition into manhood.  He proudly showed it off to all his friends (who were all male) and practiced shooting stances. My mother-in-law said to me, “oh, boys will be boys.”  I personally am disgusted by the idea of a 12 year old having guns, but this is the culture in where I live.  The idea that Jackson talks about, how “men’s violence is somehow inevitable” is incredibly dismissive and damaging to men. Men’s violence is only inevitable because the media and culture perpetuate, glorify and reinforce it.

“All of this is partly a function of how dominant ideologies work linguistically to conceal the power of dominant groups” (Tough Guise 2).

I was most intrigued by Jackson’s commentary on how the dominant group (whites, heterosexuals, and males) are allowed to remain invisible. The words and phrases the media uses are deliberate, or were deliberate at a time.  The focus on race when African Americans and Arabs are involved is appalling and so incredibly obvious, I can’t believe media outlets defend their reporting.  I had not thought about how violence when perpetrated by women is reported. According to Jackson, “gender becomes the story” (Tough Guise, 2). I really appreciate that this video was assigned because this class is called “Race, Gender and Media” and as the video points out, gender is not just women. I hope that men in this class will feel safe in our discussions to talk about the pressure towards violence and how its portrayed. The "gender cops" discussed in this video have no place in our classroom and I hope that men are able to reflect on this video and see where they were "policed" by these cops, or cases where they themselves were a "gender cop". I can relate as a woman who has been "slut shamed" and has also "slut shamed" others. I have learned how those experiences hurt me, and how I hurt others.