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On December 12th, 2008, Don Sanderson, a 21-year-old hockey player, was put into a coma and died after three weeks after he was in a fight at one of his games. His goal, from what he told his father, was that he did not want to fight, however, fighting is a part of the hockey culture. It’s a sport where the athletes get to show how strong, dominant and aggressive they are on the ice, pretty much how much of a “man” they are. Hockey is a violent sport; however, most hardcore fans will say that there is a “code” that everyone knows that makes the game safer. That code still falls under those stereotypical traits of masculinity.

First off, hockey is the only sport where fighting is allowed, and a lot of players, like Don Sanderson, did not want to fight. However, players are forced to fight to help out their teammates, such as George Laraque, the “enforcer” of his teams (Edmonton, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Montreal). Laraque explains that his role in the team was to make sure that his teammates were safe. According to Kilmartin’s text “No Man is an Island: Men in Relationships”, instead of complimenting each other and saying meaningful stuff, men will often show friendship by helping each other out (Kilmartin: No Man is an Island: Men in Relationships). Moreover, CBC tells the viewers, in their episode “The Code”, that protecting your teammates is “the essence of hockey’s unwritten law”, and in the case of Don Sanderson, the only reason why Don would fight was to help his teammates. After his first games, Don called his dad and told him that he got into a fight, and when he was asked why, Don said that he was helping out his captain and that his captain was more important to the team. Some of these “kinship” rules can also be seen in places like the schoolyard, where some boys would be excluded from a group for not helping their friends, or not fighting alongside the group. In sum, most of the time, when players who don’t want to fight to end up fighting, is to protect their friends and teammates, which is how men make “real men” make friends.

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For Don Cherry, the code is to fight with honour, which can relate to Brannon’s four themes of masculinity. The first one, “Antifemininity”, refers to men avoiding feminine traits (Kilmartin: Defining Men’s Studies). Furthermore, what I learned in Anthropology when A roman gladiator fought with no fear of death, the crowd would consider that honour. Therefore, in this hockey context, I would assume that fighting with no fear would be considered “fighting with honour”. The second one, “Status and Achievement”, is pretty self-explanatory, the man has to be successful in whatever he is doing, which would mostly be sports, work, and/or sexual “conquest” (Kilmartin: Defining Men’s Studies) In hockey, those who are more successful are those who win more fights. Furthermore, a lot of hockey players are in the NHL for their fighting ability rather than their hockey skills. The third element, “Inexpressiveness and Independence”, describes a man to be strong no matter what and should not depend on others in any situation (Kilmartin: Defining Men’s Studies). Strength can be measured in many forms such as physical (muscles or stamina) or mental (Strength od character, dedication, or stubbornness), and in hockey, it would mostly be the players that have the most strength, physically and mentally, who are the most recognized in a team. Lastly, the fourth element, “Adventurousness, and Aggressiveness”, explains that men should be willing to take physical risks and have the ability to be aggressive when they have to be (Kilmartin: Defining Men’s Studies). Taking physical risks and being aggressive is something you need in all sport, you always have to push the distance of your physical ability to achieve greatness and, during games, you need to be aggressive so that you can use the full extent of your body and muscles. In sum, Don Cherry’s definition of The Code can fit the terms of Robert Brannon’s “manbox”,

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Finally, some players are not in the NHL because of their skills on the ice, but rather their fighting abilities. As most fans and players will tell others, fighting is a big part of hockey, and according to Jon Mirasty, hockey without fighting is just figure-skating. In Kimmel’s text “Masculinity as Homophobia” it states that violence is a big marker of manhood (Kimmel: Masculinity as Homophobia), which would usually lead to people thinking that the person has an aggressive and daring personality. This is a tactic that some teams use in the league, instead of scaring the other team by having good plays and winning all the time, they make sure that the players are big and strong and can hit very hard. According to Nick Kypreos, hockey is based on intimidation, which comes back to Kimmel’s text saying that manhood is associated with power (Kimmel: Masculinity as Homophobia). In the hockey context, using intimidation to make the other team fear them lets them have power over the other team and allows them to control the game even more. The intimidation tactic can and will also be let the fans and the other team know who the dominant team is. In sum, certain aspects of manhood is also used as a tactic to make the game a little easier from one of the two teams on the ice.

In conclusion, even if hockey those have a lot of fights, you can’t just yank it out of the sport, since it might lead to more malicious tackles between players. I am not saying that The Code is making the game safer, and I am not saying that it is not, because I don’t enjoy watching fighting in sport. Of course, taking out fights may cause you to lose fans and money, since Don Cherry pointed out, 70% of the people associated with hockey enjoy the fights. One way I could think of to solve the issue at hand is to teach the young kids to not do that since athletes mostly remember the aspects they learned when they were young. However, to have that big of an impact, you will need to have a whole new generation of hockey players, and there is also the problem of the NHL losing money. Therefore, taking fighting out of hockey is a hard decision to make.

Reference:

• McKeown B. (2010), The Code, CBC: The Fifth Estate https://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2009-2010/the-code
• Kilmartin: No Man is an Island: Men in Relationships
• Kilmartin: Defining Men’s Studies
• Kimmel: Masculinity as Homophobia

On March 3rd, we have had a visit from Jay Marquis-Manicom to talk about the thesis “From the Red Pill to ‘White Genocide’: An Ethnography of the Alt-Right in Montreal.” It talks about a group of white males, named the “Alt-right”, who would love for Canada to go back to the way it was when white males “ruled the world”. They were like Montreal’s Neo-Nazis for White supremacy. The members consist of only male members but, they are people like us who, through various experiences of which we do not know, chose to join. I could imagine how difficult it must have been for Jay to not speak out of line with these guys. He explained that he just went along with the flow and subtly contradicted them. There were not many subjects that he touched that caught my eye until he started mentioning words that we covered in class.

First off, Jay started talking about the philosophy that the Alt-right followed as one of the four key concepts. He explained that the group believes that masculinity is important, that they are against modernization, and they view male supremacy as the better option. Then, Jay mentions the words “antifemininity”, which made me think about the text written by Kilmartin with the chapter named “Defining Men’s Studies.” In that text, Killmartin describes an antifeminine person as a person who steers clear of behaviours, interests, and personal traits that people would say are feminine (Kilmartin “Defining Men’s Studies). Therefore, we know that the group is not a big fan of showing each other their emotions. Furthermore, the text also states that many theories suggest that antifemininity is the mother brain of all the other concepts. Plus, as I learned in psychology, the way you think will influence the way you feel, and the way you feel affects the thing you do and the way you behave.

Next, Jay mentions the hierarchy system that the group has when he is describing the fourth concept “Outlook of the group”. The hierarchy system is a system in which people ranked based on the status they have. In this case, the supremacy group, of course, class women as inferior and men as superiors, which again, is probably because of bad experiences. However, since they have this social hierarchy, they cannot have close friends. Kilmartin’s text “No Man is an Island: Men in Relationships”, states that men who give in to the stereotypes of being a man are bound to suffer from loneliness and have more conflicts based on psychological intimacy (Kilmartin). Based on this claim, I highly believe that the men in the group do not have much trust between each other. They might view the others as acquaintances because they probably only see each other when it is time for a meeting, or as buddies since they share this activity. Either way, they lack the deep connection to form a strong bond between the other members.

Lastly, the demographic side of the group. The group is mostly formed of millennial men, zoomers, people who are good with computers, and gamers. What all these people have in common is that they don’t socialize, mostly because they can’t. states that in men-only groups, they will interact using insults, silence, and direct questions to show acceptance and agreement, or the opposite (Kilmartin). The way to notice the difference can be explicit, like the words used, or explicit, such as the tone of the person’s voice. I’m not sure why, but it is probably because if you are talking to someone over a computer chat, or a game chat, people judge you less. As Michael Kimmel mentions in the text “Masculinity as Homophobia”, fear makes men feel ashamed, because it is proof that they are not as manly as they pretend to be. I feel bad for them, but at the same time, I sort of understand how they feel. Society programs us to think that we need to be a certain way, and they will insult you by calling you weird for example. I take weird as a compliment, because, no one else can do what I do.

When I asked the person why he is close to his friend, I expected the person to ask for a few minutes to think about it, but he didn’t. He says that they have known each other since kindergarten, plus he is very honest. They would always be there for each other when they need help and they are always ready to hang out. He ends off this question by saying that he and his friend have a great understanding.

Then, I asked my subject what he and his friend enjoy doing when they are together. The subject replied that enjoy talking and hanging out. They would go out, play some sports, go get something to eat, or they would stay home and play video games. They also like to talk about stuff, mostly about how their lives are going and what’s new.

As for the last question of letting the person know if you appreciate them, the subject never told him his friend how much he appreciates him. Other than calling his friend his brother, the subjects says there is no recollection that the subject can think of. They both know that they appreciate each other even if they don’t tell each other.

Analysis: The text says the same thing about men being emotionless and not intimate with people from the same sex. However, the text also says that because of such, men will not have a good relationship with others. Therefore, if you don’t have that intimacy with someone, you cannot qualify them as being your best friend. Best friend, are two friends who are “emotionally intimate”, which you cannot have if you are scared of it. From how my subject describes his relationship with his friend, he has a pretty intimate relationship, with a friend who is reliable and trustworthy.

I think what Michael Kimmel was trying to say, in his text “Masculinity” is that the society you live, and the people around you are the ones that tell you how to act based on your gender. Then, thanks to the information that the people around you have given you on how men and women should act, you will most likely tell other boys and girls how to act as well, therefore, reproducing the “gender order” (Kimmel at al 2000). In the movie, from a young age, boys have been socialized to be aggressive, and emotionless, but also to be the protector and the provider for their families. Then, when they grow up, they will probably pass that way of thinking on to their kid as well.

Kimmel uses “masculinities” because each culture’s definition of a man is different. Kimmel mentions it himself, adding that the definition is a model for people, mostly boys, to compare themselves against to grow and know what a man is in their culture (Kimmel at al 2000). In the documentary “Man Enough”, there were two types of men that I was able to pull; there was the violent and emotionless predators and the “Allies”. Most men act like the predators to be accepted in the group because as a human, we crave that sense of belonging. Therefore, whoever is the “Alpha” of the group is the model for the others. However, if young boys see their idols do something different than the Alpha’s acts, they might choose their idol instead of the Alpha, because of the platform that the idol has. That’s why, at the end of the documentary, they mention that people should “Grow, Share, and Encourage” so the people can learn to respect others.

It was weird seeing people of society describing what they thought, or what people told them, was a real man and what they did because they thought it was “manly”. For example, the guy who quit music because he was getting bullied. It was unexpected for me to hear someone get bullied for doing music because when I was in high school, doing music was great. Music was something that was very special in high school and we never got anything negative about it. I’m not sure how not drinking and not doing drugs makes you an outcast. I personally prefer not to do any of those because they can have harmful effects on the body, including liver disease, addiction, and even death. As for boys being more aggressive when they are depressed, I believe it could be true, that’s why, I think some guys do sports, to put their aggression into something other than hitting people. Others may take it as a sort of therapy for themselves from stress, pain, etc. However, sometimes we are forced to talk about what is going on because most coaches can tell something is wrong in their players life by the way they are playing.

The part when Carlos explains that “Manhood” is a game that we are destined to lose was the part that got my attention. The reason being that throughout the book, he explains that men use three terms to oppress the feminized attitudes in men. What really got my attention was when he said that people “oppress” who they really are. I found that quite surprising since it explains a lot about some people I’ve met in the past and those mentioned in the text. Something I remember being taught, and that is clearly stated in this paragraph is to accept who you are.

The man the inspires me the most would have to be Cristiano Ronaldo. There are many stories that I have heard that made me quite fond of him. For example, there was this one family that needed $80 000 for their son’s operation. The family reach out to Ronaldo asking him to donate a sign shirt and shoes to sell it and have to money for the operation. Ronaldo donated it, but he did something more: he paid for the whole operation. Knowing that, makes me want to help people not because he is someone I idolize, but because I enjoy helping people, it’s like a part of me. He has the basic qualities like kind-hearted, helpful, assertive, a born leader, sure of himself, etc. However, his biggest quality, that inspires me the most has to be his work ethic. This quality is what gets me through school, soccer, and life. An example of his work, if a you show up to training at 6am and think it’s early, think again, Ronaldo is already there. If you think you are working hard, think again, Ronaldo is working harder. His hard-working personality is one of the most inspirational for me, but to understand, best thing to do is watch his story. I think what qualifies someone to be inspirational is when something the person says or does that makes other people want to be like that person. Ronaldo, Keanu Reeves, even your parents was once inspirational to their kids. Who knows, maybe they still are.

Pizza