Violence is very present in each school. Each teenager faces at least once in his high school years. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation episode: “How to Fight for Safer Schools” shows that many kids in school’s face bullying and dangerous fights at school. This episode displays that girls and boys get assaulted in school. Girls tend to get more sexually assaulted and boys tend to get more being bullied: “41 percent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 percent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school, and one in four students first experienced sexual harassment or assault before grade 7”.

First of all, young teens, specifically male are filled with the wrong information on how to handle a situation. For each argument they have, they respond it with fights each time because they think this is how you handle a situation in a “manly way”. They respond to it with anger and everybody thinks it’s normal because this is how a man is supposed to be; how a man is supposed to react. A man has to be strong, deal anger with anger. Men are taught at a very young age what is to be a man. Whether it’s their dad or another male teacher at school. The society pressures young men to follow masculinity so much that in a way they corrupt young men at an early age. Some disrespect and hate women so much that they even rape them. These types of men can consider “Antifeminist”, where they just don’t care about any women and, they can do whatever they want. Also, some men can’t see a woman being superior to them. For example, at work, where a boss is a woman and for their ego satisfaction they tend to sexually assault them or bring them down (Kilmartin, Working). As seen in the episode, a young girl was raped by a guy from her school. Two other girls came forward after she reported to her school. The rapist still got away with it and came back to school. The school board did nothing to protect these girls. They seem to care more about how they would look rather than being worried about having rapists in their school. 

Second, off all, boys tend to fight because of bullying. If they tell a supervisor, they are labelled as a snitch and weak, meaning they can’t fight or handle a situation “man to man” and that’s where their masculinity is tested. The reason why fights are happening a lot in Newfoundland is that schools are not taking these issues seriously. In the Canadian Broadcast Corporation episode, we witness that the interviewer tries to interrogate a staff member at a school, but she refuses to answer his questions. It shows that her school is not handling the bullying and fighting problem correctly and that’s why fights keep on happening over and over in that school and every other school that’s not handling it properly.

Lastly, young men tend to react in violence because they think it’s dope to be in fights. They think maybe this will make me popular in school and my crush will notice me. As seen in many teenager’s movies, we always show that the most popular guy is dating the most popular girl. She is most likely to be a cheerleader. This may be a stereotype, but it is very accurate as well. Although our life isn’t a movie, young men follow this perception but the ending rarely end up like in movies. To hide their feelings, men lash out the anger that ends up in a fight against someone else and this is taught not only by fathers but also by people from school. It may be a basketball coach that tells you: stop crying…Crying is a feminine behavior and you’re not a woman as we saw in the “Man Enough” documentary. I think that is why there is so much violence at school

To conclude, schools are allowing it because they are not handling the situation as they are supposed to. As seen in the episode, the schools were even asking money for them to be interrogated and, they were also scared about their reputation. They know that they aren’t doing enough about bullying in their schools.

Work Cited

Christopher Kilmartin and Andrew P. Smiler “Men at Work: Jobs, Careers and Masculinity.” The Masculine Self, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 221-226,228–235.

Kilmartin, Christopher, and Andrew P. Smiler. “Defining Men’s Studies.” The Masculine Self, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 1–7

Newsom, Jennifer S, Jessica Congdon, Jessica Anthony, Regina K. Scully, Joe Ehrmann, Michael S. Kimmel, Caroline Heldman, Lise Eliot, Michael G. Thompson, William S. Pollack, Carol Gilligan, Madeline Levine, Judy Y. Chu, Terry A. Kupers, Niobe Way, Pedro Noguera, Philip G. Zimbardo, Byron Hurt, James Gilligan, John Behrens, and Eric Holland. The Mask You Live in., 2015.

CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088.

Mcguire, Jennifer. “Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools.” 8 Nov. 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402.

Mcguire. “Most Schools Keep Violent Incidents Secret, so We Surveyed 4,000 Students. Here’s What They Shared | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 9 Nov. 2019, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-marketplace-1.5224865.

1. Why are you so close with your friend?

He is very close his friend because they understand each other. They know about each other a lot. His friend is always here for him when he needs his help and support. He knows what makes him mad and happy. His friend is more of a brother than a friend

2. What kinds of things you like to do with each other?

They like to chill around, drive, eat outside and play videogames.

3. Have you ever told your friend how much he means to you? If so, what did you say and how did he react? If you have never told him how much he means to you, why not?

He does tell him how much he means to him on special occasions like his birthday. He also said that he’s like a brother to me, someone I’d never want to lose and always be close with him.

1. I think when Kimmel wrote “Institutions accomplish the creation of gender difference and the reproduction of gender order through several gendered processes”, he meant that all the workplace, media, religion, family and school tries to define our traits in how we are suppose to act. For example, in the documentary “Man Enough”, men are thought to hide their emotions because they’re suppose to be strong and dominant. Society considers them weak if men get sad or cry. Also, there is this concept called “bro code”, where it’s popular in high school, where young men are thought among themselves that your “bros” are very important, where theirs this code. If you break it, you are out of the group and you’re considered as an “enemy”.
2. Kimmel writes, “Understanding how we do masculinities…opens up the unimaginable possibilities of social change ” instead of masculinity because everyone has their own definition of “masculinity” depending on what they are thought and how they are raised. For example, a man from the 21^st century might probably not have the same definition of masculinity compared to a man from the early 90” s.

What caught my attention in the document “The mask you live in” was how men are pressure to “fit in” in the stereotype of masculinity. For example if you’re a man, people automatically assume that you’re muscular, in a sports team, going to the gym or getting laid all the time. There is no mention of emotions. Because if you show them, you are considered to be soft. It’s like the only emotion society accepts from a man is anger. The only emotion that a man can show is his anger. I find that upsetting because men do have other feelings like sadness but they have to hide it because then they get called on names like “faggot or a pussy”. As a human being, it is normal to feel upset, sad & depressed.

 I was also shock to know that every 1 in 6 boy get sexually abuse. This is something underrated because nobody ever talks about it. I only saw 13 reasons why talking about it. No other show. Women sexual abuse is more popular than men. Why is that? It’s really traumatic to see and hear that both genders are facing sexual abuse in their lives. Nobody deserves to face this traumatic situation whether it’s a women or a MAN.

In the Gomez story, the part where he says where so many people were enforcing his masculinity; “it’s my dad making sure I’m staying in shape and going to the gym”. It’s his friend freezing up and don’t know what to do when he gets emotional. As a mention earlier, it’s normal to have emotions for men. Yet, they get judge because it is not considered a “manly” act. They’re not born heartless. They have feelings too and it’s okay to show them.

Hi, so my inspirational man is my friend (I prefer not to say their name) because I find that he is a hard worker. Not only in school but also at other things in life. Ever since I known him, he has always been independent. He is my inspiration because he’s always finding something better. For example, he had a job at Provigo has a meat cutter but later on he found a job at Aldo as a sale associate. He found something really better than what he had before. Because of him, I wanted to start working to feel a little more independent and not always depend on my parents. He’s my inspiration because he is a very good person. He has a good heart. He’s always here for you when u need something.

To be an inspirational is to bring out the best version of you.

Pizza