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Saira Peesker on hanging with touchy-feely dudes

I confess, I was afraid the White Ribbon Campaign’s two-day What Makes A Man conference held the weekend of November 22 might be cheesy.

Could I really spend hours surrounded by men talking about their feelings on masculinity? Ah, but then I realized it was exactly that kind of bias these guys were there to address. So I spent a day listening and discovered the main take-away: it’s not easy to be a feminist male in a gang of bros.

The crowd at the Daniels Spectrum on Dundas East was largely composed of educators and activists – about equal numbers women and men – and it was easy to feel like the presenters were preaching to the choir. But the event, which drew 270 people, also morphed into a support group for men trying to keep things real in very tricky interpersonal situations.

That certainly was the theme of Friday’s speech by U.S. doc filmmaker Byron Hurt, who said it can be emotionally exhausting calling out other men on their misogyny.

“To be real honest, a lot of the time I don’t feel like confronting a dude about his sexism. Sometimes I just want to chill and watch the football game,” said the one-time college quarterback now a gender campaigner. ” I don’t get invited to the party, the club, the fraternity reunion, because people know I’m not going to stand for the sexism.”

Hurt’s 2006 Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes doc posits that hyper-masculinity is a mask for insecurity. He said Friday that the pressure to ignore feelings and “act hard” causes men psychic damage that is passed on to others in their lives.

The film features a cavalcade of rappers unwilling to explain their anti-woman or homophobic lyrics, and a mind-numbing scene at a music festival where men physically prey on women, many of whom willingly accept the behaviour.

“Generally speaking, men look at girls and women as less than and not worthy of full respect, and have deeply problematic views,” he told the audience, which included members of Manifesto, a community arts and hip-hop project pushing diversity.

“My focus is to reach as many boys as possible. We have to [stop] with words like “weak,” “pussy,” that keep so many men inside their box.”

Manifesto organizer Shaka Licorish said he could relate. “Coming up as a young person, the images [of black men] I had to latch onto were hip-hop artists and actors. As much as hip-hop says it’s about being real, a lot of it is acting,” he said, noting that young people take the lyrics to heart and fail to see them as part of a role-playing performance.

Friday’s session ended with local hip-hop artist Mindbender drumming up participants in his six-week love class. “Learn to walk with awareness in each step and speak with compassion and/or truth in each breath,” says his promo. “Join us on this new Journey of Love!”

What Makes A Man was touchy-feely all right, but, hey, that was the point.

news@nowtoronto.com

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