Queer Immersion Critical Response - Sally Andarge

“How can we, in 2018, just dismiss derogatory language as locker room talk? Maybe there’s something else going on in our culture that contributes to toxic masculinity.”

                                                                                      -Byron Hurt

            When I attended the talk on hyper-masculinity, Byron Hurt’s analysis on how language is used to normalize toxic gender norms caught my attention. In order to introduce the concept, he started with an activity. On a white board he drew a big box and asked us to give him some of the stereotypes of male roles in society. Most people said the basics: provider, protector, and strong. These also lead to the negative stereotypes associated with masculinity, like aggression and sexual prowess, or as one of the students put it, “getting some ass.” Once the students had provided sufficient examples of gender based stereotypes that have socialized men’s behavior he asked students to give examples of how men are verbally abused or treated when they do not conform to these gender roles. Most of the words were offensive and derogatory, such as, pussy, “lil bitch”, and sissy. He proceeded to write these examples on the outside of the box. This became a metaphor for what happens to men when they step outside of the box in the ways that they express or act out their gender.

            When the board was full, Mr. Hurt offered analysis about how all the things inside the box work to socialize young men. Young men are taught that they are meant to be providers, protectors, and aggressive. But if or when a man chooses not to express or act out his gender accordingly the words on the outside of the box are used to condition them into submission. Byron Hurt then offered up a personal narrative about the effect these gender based slurs can have, especially on young boys. Growing up, Byron Hurt grew up in a low socio-economic status home and as a result of their financial situation he and his sister shared a bed. When he was about five years old Byron had a friend over when his mom told him to get ready for bed. When his friend saw him go to the same room as his sister he called him a sissy. He said, “I was only 5 years old and had never heard that word before, but between the look on his face and how he said it, I knew that a sissy was a terrible thing to be. I just knew it.” He explains that not only was he lead and conditioned to believe that being a sissy was bad but that he also began to associate that word with his sister. As a result of this stigma associated with them, these words incentivize a man’s behavior and perpetuate anti-woman and anti-queer sentiment in society.

            Overall, Byron Hurt did a great job of illustrating the detrimental effects that hyper-masculinity has on our society from the aggressive socialization of young men to the perpetuation of straight male supremacy.