Not the people, the word.

I think this is actually a very useful word - it removes the normativity of the male/female binary. I also like genderqueer as a way to subvert the binary.

Will 'Cisgender' Survive?

The linguistic complement to "transgender" has achieved some popularity, but faces social and political obstacles to dictionary coronation.

Paula Blank | Sept. 24, 2014 

Nick McPhee/Flickr 

 

The new Amazon Original Series, Transparent, about a middle-aged father who's transitioning into a woman, is just the latest cultural sign that the word "transgender" has gone mainstream. No doubt there have been transgender people—that is, those with a gender identity or gender expression that doesn't conform to their assigned birth sex—since there have been people at all, but the term itself wasn't coined until the 1970s. Popular confusion about its usage notwithstanding (for example, questions about the difference between "transgender" and "transsexual"), "transgender" is here, it's queer, and a lot of people have gotten used to it.

The situation is more complicated for "cisgender," coined in the 1990s to mean the opposite of "transgender." The "trans" in "transgender" comes from a Latin word meaning "on the other side of," and the "cis" in "cisgender" comes from a Latin word meaning "on this side of." "Cisgender" refers to people who feel there is a match between their assigned sex and the gender they feel themselves to be. You are cisgender if your birth certificate says you're male and you identify yourself as a man or if your birth certificate says you're female and you identify as a woman. Presumably you are also cisgender if you were born intersex (that is, with some combination of male and female reproductive parts) and identify as an intersex or androgynous person.

 

For a while, "cisgender" only appeared in academic journals. But now it's all over the Internet, and not just on blogs and sites of, by, and for transgender people. It's made it into online reference works like the Oxford Dictionaries. And since "cisgender" is one of the 56 options for gender identification on Facebook (along with "cis female," "cis male," "cis woman, "cis man," "cisgender woman," "cisgender man," and just plain "cis"), it has already achieved a kind of pop officialdom. 

Even more auspiciously, Stephen Colbert referred to "cis-language" in a recent episode of The Colbert Report. On June 17, in a segment of the show called "The Word," the comedian announced that his racial identity is "ciswhite" because, as he put it, "I've always been comfortable with my birth-race." Colbert's announcement should be a big deal as far as disseminating "cis" goes. His 2005 coinage, "truthiness," became so popular that the American Dialect Society named it "The Word of the Year"—the term that best represented the times. In 2006 it was still going strong, as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary named it its "Word of the Year," too.

Still, "truthiness" never made into standard dictionaries of contemporary English. Neither have any of the "cis" words—at least not yet. Will "cisgender" go all the way into the English language, become mainstream, right alongside "transgender"?

Despite Facebook, even despite Colbert, "cisgender" may not last, let alone become a household word. And it's not because it started life as academic jargon. After all, "transsexual," the basis for "transgender," was first introduced in the American Journal of Psychotherapy. "Heterosexual" and "homosexual" were invented by neurologists in the late 19th century, to name what they considered to be opposing perversions ("heterosexuals" were deviants who enjoyed relations with the opposite sex for pleasure and not just for procreation). Since "transgender," "heterosexual," and "homosexual" have stuck despite their provenance, "cisgender" just might, too.

That said, "cisgender" sounds more improbable as a word than "transgender" ever did. While the prefix "trans" is familiar from hundreds of English words ("translate," "transport," "transcend"), "cis" occurs in only a handful, the least obscure of which is probably "cisalpine" ("on this side of the Alps"). Compared to "transgender," the meaning of "cisgender" isn't very transparent (so to speak). Research by Harvard linguist Steven Pinker has shown that neologisms with staying power can often be identified by their initial "unobstrusiveness" (see his 2007 bestseller, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature). Lexicographer Kerry Maxwell has since used a simpler (and more recent) word, "user-friendliness" to predict longevity. She says it helps if new words are easy to pronounce, easy to read, and easy to spell.

"Cisgender"? Not so much.

Of course, there's more at stake in the viability of "cisgender" than mere words. "Cisgender" suggests a commonality among transgender and non-transgender people, at a time when transgender people are struggling for recognition. It tells us that we all experience some kind of relationship between our bodies and our selves, whatever that relationship may be. And it reminds us that those who experience a "match" between their body and their selves have it a lot easier in our society than those who do not. To the extent that "cisgender" helps raise awareness of intolerance and injustice towards transgender people, it serves a crucial political purpose right now. Potentially, "cisgender" could help build consensus on transgender rights.

There's more at stake in the viability of "cisgender" than mere words.

 

However, the politics of "cisgender" have already proven divisive. Perhaps the most surprising protests are coming from the left—from people, that is, who might otherwise be counted on to support the transgender movement. There are feminists who balk at the idea that cisgender women are privileged in relation to transgender women, who were born male. Among other potential benefits, such as "passing" as men in a patriarchal culture, transgender women don't have to worry about reproductive rights. The Huffington Post recently collected a grab-bag of very mixed reactions to "cisgender" from the gay community. It's clear that some gay men and lesbians see "cisgender" as a slur, a way of labeling them as elitists or conformists after all (i.e., as not "queer" enough). Some think "cisgender" validates the notion that there are two (and only two) genders, correlating with two (and only two) sexes, just as many are exploring non-binary gender identities, such as "genderqueer."
All of which brings us back to the problem of the word "cisgender" itself. Linguists agree that the survival of a neologism relies, above all, on whether it names a stable and coherent concept, an idea that will last. It's the uncertainty of the concept behind the word "cisgender," for now, that really hints at trouble.  

As the social and medical sciences tell us more and more about ourselves and one another, we may eventually settle on the right words, the true words or, at least, the ones that reflect the data. "Cisgender" may or may not end up being one of them. But maybe, in the long run, it doesn't matter. Maybe the impact of Facebook's 56 genders will one day prove to have had nothing to do with naming all the possibilities for gender identity, but rather with helping to make the idea of possibility, itself, official. Our vocabulary of gender and sex is in flux right now because our ideas about gender and sex are in flux, too.

So will "cisgender" be an upcoming "Word of the Year," the linguistic sign of our times? Or will we just forget about it?

Quite possibly, both.

Paula Blank is a professor of English at the College of William and Mary.

Tracy Moore - Meet the Spornosexuals: Muscled Men Who Embrace Equal Opportunity Objectification

About 20 years ago, a new word entered the cultural lexicon, and quickly became both pervasive and pointless - Mark Simpson's metrosexual. [Even now, the spell-checker in Blogger thinks its not a word.]

So Simpson thinks he has identified a new subculture in varied world of masculinities, the spornosexual, a second generation metrosexual where obsession with clothes is replaced by obsession with sports and fitness, and the added, seemingly ubiquitous porn addiction (or desire to be a porn star).

Oh, and they love to post selfies of their buffness on social media sites. Honestly, this makes them little different than all of the females who post pictures of themselves in their underwear or showing off their ass-sets. It all feels a bit homoerotic to me, which is also interesting. While certainly a lot of these guys identify as straight, there is also the element in this trend of wanting to be desired by both sexes, whether it's to be sexually desired (by women) or to instill jealousy (in other men) for their physiques (who will desire their buffness).

Besides, this type of selfie has long been an element in the gay male community - a kind of marketing tactic.

So, do we really need this word? Tracy Moore, writing for Jezebel, thinks not.

Meet the Muscled Men Who Embrace Equal Opportunity Objectification

by Tracy Moore | 6/23/14

What's with dudes getting buffer, y'all? Should we call it something? Other than, you know, buff dudes? What ever happened to beefcake? How about we ask that guy who came up with metrosexual. Oh, he already came up with something. Spornosexual. [dies]

Let's all say it once and then never say it again because this bullshit is never going to happen. Sporno-barf-ual. Sporno-vomitron. Sporno-dude-icus. Spornoshitcicle. In fairness, if I coined a term like metrosexual that actually caught on so thoroughly that it was used even by terribly unhip people in near-forgotten states where trends hit two years late even with the Internet, I'd probably enter the ring with lady luck again and try to coin another thing every six months.

Mark Simpson, term coiner, waited 20 years. That is something. But this spornosexual business just won't do. It is a new thing out this month already added to Urban Dick that's supposed to be a term describing a second-generation metrosexual, only + sports + porn, a portmanteau of sportsman and porn star. It's all thanks to the rise of selfies, social media, and a pornified culture, what Simpson describes as "the major vectors of the male desire to be desired."

One, it sounds too much like spore or spawn and therefore it is gross and dumb, the double-whammy of bad things you can do to concepts. At least metrosexual gave you a better sense of the intersections: Urban + sexuality. It was dumb, too, but had a kind of clarity we could all dread together while also comprehending.

Two, it's way too general and all encompassing of all dudes who are beefy and nice to look at on some level without really isolating any particular distinction. According to Simpson, the tools of these eye-burning bathing suits would qualify BUT ALSO this totally acceptable beefiness found in Daniel Osborne from The Only Way Its Essex. And, we can only presume, beefcakes such as Gosling, and Efron, and Tatum, etc.

I'm spornoconfused. Wait, what is a spornosexual supposed to be, again?

Says Simpson:

With their painstakingly pumped and chiselled bodies, muscle-enhancing tattoos, piercings, adorable beards and plunging necklines it's eye-catchingly clear that second-generation metrosexuality is less about clothes than it was for the first. Eagerly self-objectifying, second generation metrosexuality is totally tarty. Their own bodies (more than clobber and product) have become the ultimate accessories, fashioning them at the gym into a hot commodity – one that they share and compare in an online marketplace.

This new wave puts the "sexual" into metrosexuality. In fact, a new term is needed to describe them, these pumped-up offspring of those Ronaldo and Beckham lunch-box ads, where sport got into bed with porn while Mr Armani took pictures.

Let's call them "spornosexuals".

Second thought: Let's not. While it's worth looking at the way selfies and porn have intersected to give rise to the indulgence of our vainer tendencies, we've no doubt all moved a little closer to the light. The term spornosexual goes beyond that to generalize beyond comprehension and make extreme assumptions about the intelligence and sleaze of anyone who looks the part (whatever that part is/still don't get it).

Says Simpson: They want to be wanted for their bodies, not their wardrobe. And certainly not their minds.

Look, if you re-read his paragraphs and pretend they're about women it sounds like every dumb thing ever said about a woman who cares a lot about her appearance. Additionally, in the various coverage of the term, you get a good sense of the unease of writers (male and female) about men who boldly seek attention for their physique or have bodies that are considered sexually appealing.

Here's one:

The term encapsulates the new breed of male who thinks nothing of using (and abusing) products, practises and pleasures previously only the domain of women and gay men. Practises including wearing half-thongs to the beach.

Ugh, men showing their bodies? And thinking nothing of it?!

Another, which calls spornosexuality an "evolutionary step backward":

Spornosexual. It sounds like something Japanese businessmen might watch (featuring naked girls and fish), but actually it's the latest fad in male beauty.

Is it really a fad? Is men caring about their bodies and appearance and clothes — even to what we might think of as "extreme" by virtue of the cultural pressure on them not to care — a fad, or simply inevitable and quite human?

And

Women have had to endure this commercialisation for years, but for men the "fun" started in the 1990s with the rise of the metrosexuals – fellas who seemed to imagine that wearing a necklace made them feminists or even a little bit gay. But, in defence of metrosexuality, at least that trend was all about remaking yourself to be attractive to others. It was innately social. By contrast, the spornosexual is really only interested in how they look to themselves – it is narcissistic. By toning and perfuming and recording every ripple with Facebook selfies, they've converted their bodies into their own masturbatory aids.

He's right that women have had to endure this for years: Narcissism is usually aimed as a pejorative at women who spend a bajillion hours getting ready as a result of an insidious blend of liking to do it and being told since birth it's their first duty to mankind. But the answer to men increasingly getting on this vain train is not to mock men who give in to the pleasures of being desired, it's to eventually regard the desire to look good — whatever your definition of that is — as acceptable for the people who are into it, not spend another round of centuries now aiming the tired criticism of shallow frivolity at men.

He goes onto say there's nothing wrong with wanting to look good, but that prioritizing looking good above having brains (for men) is not a sign of gender equality or social progress. Again, the larger point is missed: Looking good without being viewed as intelligent is hardly considered problematic in women, much less viewed as a tragic development. But men being all brawn and no brain? A step back.

But back to those men: Certainly, the increasing focus on everyone feeling the pressure to look camera ready is a phenomenon well worth documenting, but not everyone feels that pressure, and it's certainly not summed up by spornosexual. Certainly it'd be nice if everyone could feel less pressure to look perfect, but this is capitalism, and equal opportunity objectification is probably the best we can hope for.

Simpson writes that spornosexuals have "photoshopped themselves in real life" which we know is a lot like a line out of Crazy, Stupid Love uttered by Emma Stone describing the body of none other than ultimate beefcake Ryan Gosling. This. But this is a long time coming and true of women too. In a piece about the rise of Hollywood hotties, Dodai tracked the trend that for men in the industry, it's no longer about acting; it's about abs.

The fact is, it's possible to discuss and critique the fact that men's bodies can be sexualized too, for better or for worse, and celebrate that choice when it is in fact a choice. Men's bodies are no less appealing or lust-inspiring than women's, and such determinations are a matter of opinion anyway. Still, it's hard to imagine a time when, no matter how much men "eagerly objectify" themselves, that such pressures will ever be a mandate. The decision to be extra-maniacal about your bod as a dude on earth is probably only going to help you, and even if it makes a lot of people invested in more rigid gender roles uncomfortable, for the time being, it's still optional.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.

The End of Bro Culture?

Slate has posted an interesting article of the history of the word, bro, and the reasons why it may be on its way out of common usage. One of the best arguments is from the Russian linguist Bakhtin, who once pointed out that every genre ends in parody of itself in literary form. This was before films became the cultural standard and literature became a fringe medium. If Bakhtin is right, the recent trend of bro movies (I Love You, Man, The Expendables, Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle, The Hangover, and so on) might be the best indicator the word is doomed.

Here is the video referenced in the first paragraph of the article from Slate.


Funny. It's only fitting that men should know what it feels like to be seen as little more than decoration. The only difference is that here it is done as satire, when male rocker videos do it there is no self-awareness that they are dehumanizing the women.

Here is the more serious full article from Slate on the potential demise of Bro culture. Couldn't happen too soon for me.

The End of Bro

The term’s ubiquity may signal its demise.

By Matthew J.X. Malady

Bro in the news. Image by Slate.

A few weeks ago, the country music duo Maddie & Tae released their debut single “Girl in a Country Song” to impressive airplay numbers and broad media coverage. Why all the attention? The song is catchy, but it also appealed to people as the latest in a series of highly public junk punches that have been pounding away at bro culture as we’ve come to know it. “Girl in a Country Song” takes aim at a musical genre known as Bro Country, a term coined by former Slate music critic Jody Rosen. In the video, which has been viewed more than 4 million times on YouTube, three bros are made to parade around in cutoff jeans and too-tight tank tops before eating strawberries in slo-mo.

As nearly everyone has noticed, since at least the early aughts, men—especially straight, white men between the ages of 15 and 35 who happen to wear their baseball caps backward and enjoy the occasional brewski or bro-hug with other similarly situated men—have been referring to one another as bro with increasing regularity. As a result, we’ve all suffered through far too many bro-related SNL sketches and that ridiculous Bros Icing Bros thing, our ears accosted by annoying portmanbros like “bromance” and “Broseph Stalin.” “U Mad Bro?” became an Internet and T-shirt sensation. “Don’t tase me, bro!” went viral within hours of being uttered. And bro on, and bro on.

During the past 12 months there has been a marked uptick in news stories and magazine articles portraying the bro lifestyle as one based on privilege, self-centeredness, and sexism. (Among the more prominent examples: a widely read New York Times piece that examined “a sexist, alpha-male culture” in the tech industry.) But when it comes to how we talk to one another, a similar level of backlash isn’t immediately evident. The proliferation of “Don’t Bro Me If You Don’t Know Me!” T-shirts may seem to signal the early stages of a rebellion against the bro-ification of our language—but they also appear to claim a truer, more intimate meaning of the term that should not be sullied. (Once we do know the T-shirt wearer, we can, it seems, bro them at will.) And spend 10 minutes at almost any sporting event, concert, gym, or mall, and you’ll quickly realize that bro’s place in casual conversation remains rock solid.

Still, amid this very ubiquity, there are signs that suggest the word may not last. To understand why, it helps to know where the word comes from, and why it’s taken off over the past decade or so.

University of Pittsburgh linguistics professor Scott Kiesling argues that bro has thrived during the recent past at least partly because it offers up a few things that other seemingly similar words like dude, man, and buddy do not. “One difference that bro presents is that it is used much more than the others as a referring term to refer to a particular type of person,” he says. Kiesling notes that dude was at one point associated with a laidback, counterculture vibe, but even then it wasn’t limited to such a precise subset of men. “Dude and the other terms never really picked out a specific type of man [the way] bro does. Dudes are just dudes, men are just men, and even buddies are simply close friends. They do have slightly different connotations, but not to the specificity that bro does.”

In that way, Kiesling adds, bro has become more productive than words such as man or buddy. And when most people use it, they are doing so with specific intent. “In general, I suspect that anyone using bro knows what they are doing and why, and, moreover, taking a stance toward the terms and the culture,” he says. “They may be borrowing some aspect of ‘bro culture’ momentarily, embracing it, criticizing it, etc. But there is no ‘dude culture’ or ‘buddy culture’ to align with or against, so that’s very different.”

Even with this relatively specific set of connotations, though, the word has gradually become more widely applicable. The bro label is no longer being used solely in reference to fratty white men. It has expanded beyond the hetero universe. And, as Ann Friedman noted on the Cut last September—by paraphrasing Jay Z—the term is not even always reserved for men. In some instances, “ladies is bros, too.” (Just in case there are any doubters, Amanda Hess has developed a running list of ladybros.)

So bro is, at least for the moment, a fairly handy word with quite a bit of range. That may not seem like great news for those hoping that it goes the way of yuppie. Are we stuck with bro forever?

This is where a longer view of the word’s history is worth examining. Though usage of bro as an abbreviation of “brother” can be traced back to at least 1660, conversational uses more similar to what we hear today begin cropping up in the mid- to late 18th century, according to lexicographer and Indiana University English professor Michael Adams. He points to the text of a 1762 burlesque play titled Homer Travestie, which includes the word bro several times. “That suggests maybe it’s low or underworld speech—a type of slang of the period,” Adams says. “Brother would often be shortened to bro in this period, in the same way that many names were radically shortened, so that William would be shortened to Wm. You just skip all the letters you didn’t really need to identify the person. So in casual correspondence, that was the way people referred to each other, and it may have migrated into speech.”

Bro’s use as a simple abbreviation appears to have remained fairly consistent during subsequent centuries. But its slang usage really took off during the past 100 years or so as it gained popularity in the black community as a replacement for brother in conversation. (Use of the term brother in the black church, Adams says, can be definitively dated back to at least the early 20th century, though “that’s partly just the emergence of African-American culture into print, so it’s quite likely that brother associated with the church has a longer history. It just ends up not being recorded anywhere.”)

While the heavy use of brother by those participating in social movements during the 1960s helped propel bro into the realm of casual conversation among activists, its more broad ascendance into the pop cultural pantheon after that was mostly due to lots of white kids trying to seem cool by emulating black slang. As the 20th century advanced, first brother and then bro became progressively more common in back speech says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguistics expert who teaches at Berkeley’s School of Information. “Then,” he adds, “like everything else in black English, it’s appropriated and reinterpreted both deliberately and unwittingly by other speakers.”

This is an old, familiar story with respect to slang progression, Adams notes. “In so many ways, from the jazz age, right up through hip-hop,” he says, “African-Americans have been doing hip things, and white people have been trading on that cultural production, if you want to call it that, in order to prove that they are also hip.”

Of course, that sort of appropriation by no means guarantees that the resulting use, or any contemporary reinterpretation of the word, is destined to live on forever. And, according to both Nunberg and Adams, bro haters may have some reason to be encouraged by how the word has veered off in different directions as usage increased.

Adams contends that the mocking and parodying that has begun to attach to bro’s usage may not bode well for the term’s longevity. “The great Russian formalist critic Bakhtin once pointed out that every genre ends in parody of itself in literary form, and there are ways in which slang also moves toward that parody status,” he says. “So that when something is about ready to explode or die out, when it will be finally used up, is when people have gotten it to the stage of parody.”

Adams also believes the future of bro may to a large extent depend on the persistence of what are considered to be the foremost breeding grounds for bros: fraternities and other all-male organizations. “How residential are our universities going to be 30 years from now?” Adams asks. “Or how many people will be at home taking courses via computer and having other social associations that don’t have to do with getting together only with men.” While admitting that gaming bros and other online bro groupings could still thrive in such a scenario, he says a future wherein people—foremost young people—congregate in person less often could help speed the decline of bro. “The future of the term is going to depend on whether there are social phenomena that require use of the term, or make use of the term somehow evidently useful to some people.”

But even if nothing changes on that front, and men still convene in person with regularity down the line, bro still may not be safe.

“My first instinct would be to say that this word is going [away],” Nunberg says. “It’s too self-conscious. It’s too marked. It’s too easily ridiculed to be around for long. And because bro is associated with all these portmanteaus and derivatives, that’s a good sign it’s not going to be around. Those things never are. Every once in a while something like infotainment sticks around. But these sorts of words tend to climb up on the beach, and then get pulled down with the next tide.”

Both Adams and Nunberg declined to speculate as to whether such a tide might arrive next year, in a few decades, or even centuries from now. And rightly so. Asking for a precise prediction about something as fluid and unpredictable as language progression is a silly endeavor. It is, as one might say, for now at least, a clown question, bro.

~ Matthew J.X. Malady is Slate’s Good Word columnist. Follow him on Twitter @matthewjxmalady.

BBC - Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes

From the BBC, this is an interesting look at the new culture of misogyny, "whether there's a new culture abroad in which it's acceptable to write about, talk about, and feature women in a sexually offensive, even abusive way. Or whether the female of the species just needs to 'man up', learn to enjoy a gag, and get used to the 21st century world." This is not only a British issue, as it seems maybe worse in the U.S.

Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes

Published on May 9, 2014
Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes - BBC Documentary, 2014

From bomb threats sent to campaigners for more females on banknotes to sexually explicit pop videos. From extreme laddism at universities to rape jokes in the school yard... Kirsty Wark explores whether there's a new culture abroad in which it's acceptable to write about, talk about, and feature women in a sexually offensive, even abusive way. Or whether the female of the species just needs to 'man up', learn to enjoy a gag, and get used to the 21st century world.

Kirsty Wark also participated in a Twitter question and answer session, the product of which is presented below.

Your questions to Kirsty Wark

 

Kirsty Wark held a Twitter Q&A on sexism and misogyny

How have men's attitudes towards women changed? Is the internet a naturally hostile place for women?

The BBC's Kirsty Wark answered your questions in a live Twitter Q&A on Friday 9 May.

This is an edited version of the session.

Question from @NUS_Vonnie: Where did the idea come from that "Freedom of Speech" means freedom to say things with no consequences?
Kirsty answers: Civil society evolved over centuries-the internet just decades. Need a web conduct code that's not censorious but courteous

Will Blaik emails: Is the increased misogyny that we see a reaction to misandry?
Kirsty answers: I'm not sure that misandry is as entrenched and overt as misogyny. I think it's more complicated than a simple reaction

Question from @dotluckhurst: Is it possible to change attitudes? Parents & schools must act more urgently.
Kirsty answers: Action in schools is the great hope because it's this generation who are growing up online. Schools must talk about it.

Chris emails: Can we encourage teenagers and young people to know, care and understand others around them?
Kirsty answers: I think many young people do care for those around them. But the pressures on them, eg from porn, are phenomenal

Question from @AliceBand1: I am so shocked by Grand Theft Auto. Shocked to the core. How is this allowed to exist?
Kirsty answers: It's perfectly legal. We asked Rockstar to take part but they declined. Why don't you write to them and ask?!

Question from @_raymatthew: Why do parents allow their children to "play" computer games that show rape?
Kirsty answers: Many parents just don't know what's in these games.They need to talk to kids; the activity needs to come out the bedroom

Question from @thegreenelk: It's a mistake to tie increase in misogyny with growth of internet - think it started with rap lyrics
Kirsty answers: Misogyny has been around probably as long as men and women! But certainly rap music language should be part of the debate

Andrew Soule emails: Women say they prefer male bosses & are derogatory towards females. Do women hold themselves back?
Kirsty answers: Sexism and misogyny is a mind-set not a gender. Sometimes women don't realise that they've internalised prejudice.

Question from @thinkingmuslim: Did you toy with the idea that the internet has its own culture & its misogyny doesn't enter real world?
Kirsty answers: The internet does have its own culture, but it's one that spill[s] into the real world. For young people it is the real world

Question from @Charlesknight: Why was the show entirely white?
Kirsty answers: Noted - misogyny affects women of all colours and creeds. Women of colour can experience an additional layer of prejudice

Question from @Jillaclogs: Do you think children's access to smartphones should be regulated? So many beartraps!
Kirsty answers: Certainly could be parental controls for pre-teens, but parents need to learn to use smartphones better than their kids!

Question from @louisegrant21: Has making #blurredlines made you more worried about misogyny or more hopeful it will die out?
Kirsty answers: The young women we spoke to who are standing up to sexism and misogyny makes me hopeful. They have real energy and purpose

Question from @julieohara79: Was excellent, any chance of a series?
Kirsty answers: Glad you enjoyed the documentary. The decision on a series is above our pay-grade!

Kirsty ends: Thanks for all your questions and comments. Sorry I couldn't answer all of them. Great to have the discussion. Newsnight calls!

For more tweets from Kirsty Wark you can follow her Twitter account.
Kirsty examined these issues in the BBC2 programme Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes. Twitter Q&A produced by Andree Massiah

Men Enjoy Shopping, but Many Don't Like Strip Clubs - Who Knew?

Esquire asked 1,032 men a series of questions about topics related to masculinity - everything from going to strip clubs to watching sports on tv to the number of close friends they have. The answers defy stereotypes - for example, most men do not enjoy going to strip clubs, don't mind shopping for new clothes (although shopping for cars, not so much), and nearly half the men do not drink any night of the week, on average.

In general, this survey reveals that old school masculine gender codes are falling to the wayside.

Full results from Esquire are below the Reuters summary.

Who knew? Men enjoy shopping, but many don't like strip clubs: poll

By Patricia Reaney January 21, 2014



Shoppers ride the escalator at Macy's Herald Square in New York
NEW YORK (Reuters) - About half of men in the United States enjoy shopping for clothes, many don't like going to strip clubs and it is typical for males under the age of 44 to have sexted someone, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

Esquire magazine surveyed more than 1,000 men in an online survey that looked at male behavior. It showed it is normal for men to say "I love you" frequently and to have cried sometime during the past month.

And while there is nothing unusual about men using cologne, it is more uncommon for males to get a spray tan or color their hair.

"A lot of men have sneaking suspicions that what they say or do is not normal by traditional definitions of manhood, from how much they care about sports and cars to their taste in music and movies," Richard Dorment, senior editor at Esquire, said in an interview.

The concept of masculinity has become more expansive and elastic, he added, while the need to conform and fit in seems to lessen with age.

For the survey, Esquire asked 1,032 men on topics ranging from cooking dinner for family and friends, strip clubs and going to concerts to sexting - sending sexually explicit messages by text - and how often they have sex.

It found that the men believed it is normal to say "I love you" frequently and that they have cried in the past month.

"There are some things about manhood as it existed in previous generations that are still more or less the same, particularly the interest and emphasis on sports and the excitement that men get from watching and playing sports," said Dorment.

But other behaviors have been become mainstream in a way that Dorment believes expands on the long-held definition of normal.

Shedding tears is normal, as is using moisturizer, hair products and sexting, depending on a man's age.

"If you are under 45, it is not really weird to have sexted someone at some point in your life," said Dorment, "If you are over 45, it is atypical."

Having sex more than twice a week over the age of 45 is not normal, the poll showed, as is not having sex at all for males under that age.

Twenty-six percent of African American men said they had a manicure in the last six months or longer, compared to 7 percent of Caucasians and 10 percent of the general male population.

Men over 60 also were twice as likely to think of themselves as normal as men under 30.

The results of the survey can be found here.

"The thing that deeply surprised us, that we have the statistical data for, is how the definition of conventional, masculine behavior has expanded to include all the things that up until a few years ago were considered totally alien," said Dorment.

The online poll has a margin of error of +/- three percentage points.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Amanda Kwan)

The Mask You Live In - Documentary Coming Soon

 

Below is the trailer for a new film due out in 2014, an exploration of American masculinity. They are also seeking crowd-funding the support project - go here. This is an important topic that can always use more exposure in the public mind. Education is the way to create change.

There's Something Absolutely Wrong With What We Do To Boys Before They Grow Into Men

Joseph Lamour

"Be a man" is something we've all heard at one time or another, even a few of the women reading this right now. Being a "man" in that sense means something completely different to me (and maybe you, too) than what that phrase implies.

I can't even begin to describe the toll that the concept of masculinity has taken on my life. And it's felt everywhere. It's time we make changes, starting from within ourselves.

Danny Baker - 13 Myths Surrounding Mental Illness (Good Men Project)

Danny Baker offers an important post on the myths of mental illness over at the Good Men Project. For a lot of us, especially readers of this blog, these are common sense and we know better - but there are a lot of people who hold these beliefs or variations of them, especially men (it's weak to ask for health, we should just get over it, and so on).

13 Myths Surrounding Mental Illness

December 13, 2013 by Danny Baker

From the belief that mental illness doesn’t exist to being able to just “get over it,” Danny Baker lists 13 myths surrounding mental illness that can hinder recovery.

—   In no particular order, here are 13 of the most widespread myths surrounding mental illness in the 21st century.

1. Mental illness doesn’t exist. Just because mental illnesses are invisible on the surface, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t real. We can’t see gravity, either – does that mean that that’s made up? Furthermore, through various brain image technology, it’s actually now possible to observe differences in the brain between people with certain mental illnesses and people without them.
2. Mental illness is rare. On the contrary, approximately 1 in 4 people suffer from a mental illness.
3. You don’t know anyone with a mental illness. Again, since mental illness affects 1 in 4, then unless you live by yourself on a raft in the middle of the ocean, then it’s almost certain that you do.
4. If you have a mental illness, then it means you’re crazy. No! If you have a mental illness, then all it means is that you have a mental illness – a condition that can be treated just like physical illnesses can.
5. Mental illnesses are lifelong and impossible to treat. I kind of gave the truth away in myth 4, but it’s worth emphasizing: treatments today are more refined than ever before, and as a result, most mental illnesses are able to be recovered from, or at the very least managed.
6. If someone has a mental illness, than they’re to blame for it. While I do believe that sufferers need to take responsibility for their illness and be proactive in trying to recover, it’s critical to note that absolutely anyone can fall victim to a mental illness. Mental illnesses tend to be caused by a combination of genetics, brain chemical imbalances, psychological trauma and environmental stresses; since so much of this is out of a person’s control, then blaming them for developing a mental illness is extremely unfair.
7. Only people who are weak ask for help. It’s really the complete opposite – it takes self-awareness to admit that you have a problem, and given the stigma surrounding mental illness, it takes a lot of courage to ask for support. And on a more fundamental level, seeking help is just the smart, logical thing to do. Just like physical illnesses, mental illnesses require treatment in order for the sufferer to recover – so if you want to get better and return to living a healthy life, then you have to get help. Otherwise your illness will always impair you.
8. People with a mental illness can “just get over it”. Again, mental illnesses are illnesses. You can’t “just get over them”, in the same way you just can’t get over a physical illness like cancer.
9. People with a mental illness are violent. This is nonsense perpetrated by the media and television shows. Numerous studies have shown this to be blatantly untrue. For example in the US, a nationwide study by NIMH showed that only 4% of violent crimes are committed by people with a diagnosed mental illness. Additionally, the study showed that people with a mental illness are 11 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than the general population.
10. People with a mental illness are incompetent. Because mental illnesses are treatable, then most sufferers who are getting help are able to work and live productive lives. In fact, it’s well known that depression rates are particularly high in the legal profession, which is proof that people with a mental illness can still be extremely high functioning. Furthermore, since mental illness affects 1 in 4 people, chances are that you work with one or multiple sufferers, even if you don’t know it.
11. Mental illnesses don’t affect teenagers – any problems they’re experiencing is just part of going through puberty. Granted that one’s adolescent years tend to be more of a roller coaster than most, but it’s ludicrous to assume that this is the root of all their problems and that it’s impossible for them to suffer from a mental illness. In fact, studies show that across Australia, the UK and the US, as many as 1 in 5 teens will experience depression before they reach adulthood – and that’s just one of a myriad of mental illnesses.
12. People with a mental illness – particular those suffering from depression – are attention seekers or drama queens. In fact, it’s usually the opposite, which is why the majority of sufferers hide their pain with a smile, and why their most common response to “how are you” is “I’m fine”.
13. I can’t do anything for someone with a mental illness. While it’s true that you can’t snap your fingers and make them recover, you can help immensely by being a good friend – by doing your best to understand them instead of judging them, by showing them respect, by listening to them when they need someone to talk to, and by putting your arm around them when they need your support.

What are some of the other mental illness myths you’ve heard? If you suffer from a mental illness, what are some you’ve heard that are specific to that particular illness?

 

From the editors at Big Think, the article below summarizes last week's Specific Gravity podcast in which Jeff Schechtman speaks with Sarah Richardson, author of Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome (2013). 

According to Richardson, human genomes are 99.9 percent identical, with the exception of the X and Y chromosomes. Nonetheless, new genomic technologies make it very easy to demonstrate sex difference.

Richardson says "there are quantitative technologies that allow us to simply measure organ by organ - the liver, the heart, the brain, or disease by disease - diabetes or cardiovascular diseases - and publish a paper showing sex difference."

Yes, there are some differences, but we are still learning what they mean.

Sex and the Genome: Cultural Gender Conceptions Influence the Genetic Science of Sex

by Big Think Editors

December 6, 2013

If the 20th century was the century of silicon, many believe the 21st will be the century of biotechnology, and especially genomic technology. And as we stand at the advent of this 'genomic century,' Harvard professor Sarah Richardson argues, "we are going to need to have an open, frank conversation about how we view human difference."

Richardson, the author of Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome, points out to Jeff Schechtman in this week's Specific Gravity interview that human genomes are 99.9 percent identical, with the exception of the X and Y chromosomes. Nonetheless, new genomic technologies make it very easy to demonstrate sex difference. Richardson says "there are quantitative technologies that allow us to simply measure organ by organ - the liver, the heart, the brain, or disease by disease - diabetes or cardiovascular diseases - and publish a paper showing sex difference."

What we have a much harder time describing, Richardson says, is the meaning and significance of those differences. One view - that is both scientific and cultural - is that there is an "unchangeable binary between maleness and femaleness." And yet it is a more scientifically accurate view, in Richardson's eyes, that there is "a distributed and convergent process throughout the genome, and there are many pathways for healthy maleness and femaleness."

We still have a lot to learn about the way the genome functions. We tend to look to science to try to settle our most difficult questions, Richardson says, as if it is a neutral arbiter. And yet, Richardson says throughout history ideas about gender have always tended to drift back and forth "into science and then back out into the culture."

And so as we set out in the brave new post-genomic world, Richardson says "we need a patience with the data and an openness to surprising results." We then need incorporate these results into a cultural discussion of differences. And then, Richardson says, "we can do this research in an ethical space and feel that we are doing the right thing."

Listen to the podcast here:

 

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

~ Image courtesy of Shutterstock

From Salon, this is an important article on the many ways we emasculate boys by making them afraid to be "girly," and in doing so reinforce the most destructive elements of traditional masculinity. When we degrade boys for anything that might be at all feminine, we rob boys of their capacity for emotion as well.

When boys are taught that they can’t “be like girls” it has the threefold effect. First, it alienates them from core aspects of themselves. Second, it portrays what is feminine as undesirable and inferior. Third, it forces boys into a “man box” from which emotions and empathy are excluded. 

Read this article, and if you have boys please consider the various ways your values or the community values in which you are embedded may be impacting his sense of himself and his ability to express his feelings.

The real boy crisis: 5 ways America tells boys not to be “girly”

Mocking boys for doing "feminine" things leaves them ill-equipped for life, and makes America a worse place for all

By Soraya Chemaly

Wednesday, Sept 25, 2013

 

(Credit: GoodMood Photo via Shutterstock/Salon)

The ability to feel what others feel has many well-documented benefits, including, for empathetic people, greater psychological and physical health. The real and socially significant positive impact of empathy, however, is the ways in which it affects behavior toward others. People who are empathetic are less aggressive and prone to denigrate others; they are predisposed to act with care and compassion; they have increased egalitarian beliefs and act with less prejudice and stereotype-based hatred. Empathetic behaviors, however, are associated with being female. And weak.

The stereotypes that plague our lives teach that the characteristics of empathetic understanding are feminine: listening, sensitivity, quiet consideration and gentleness. Empathy is feminized and boys learn quickly that what is feminized is, in a man, the source of disgust. While parents, teachers, coaches, grandparents and others whose ideas shape children aren’t sitting around telling boys, “Don’t be empathetic!” they are saying, in daily micro-aggressive ways, “Don’t be like girls!” The process of “becoming a man” still often means rejecting almost any activity or preference that smacks of cross-gender expression or sympathy.

Expression and empathy are closely related for children. When boys are taught that they can’t “be like girls” it has the threefold effect. First, it alienates them from core aspects of themselves. Second, it portrays what is feminine as undesirable and inferior. Third, it forces boys into a “man box” from which emotions and empathy are excluded. An upcoming documentary, “The Mask You Live In,” carefully examines, from the perspective of boys and men, what this feels like and means in their lives.

While more and more parents are openly grappling with how to handle “non-conventional” gender behavior in children, many others won’t even consider the behavior as remotely acceptable. The policing of boys’ gender expression doesn’t require parents who yell, “Stop crying, you sound like a girl!” or homophobic classmates hurling some variation of “Don’t be so gay!” (which is, sadly, still a serious problem). A whole range or rules, traditions, daily interactions and media content come together to narrow boys’ options and, ultimately, abilities. Consider these five everyday ways that boys are taught first not to look like girls, not to be like girls, not to do “girly” things, and then, ultimately, to lose the ability to feel compassion.

1. Clothing. That we color-code kids needs no explanation. Without getting into the details of how fearful communities can be when it comes to gender-fluid children and their free self-expression, in general, boys and girls are taught to dress according to binary gender-types and stereotypes. We seem nationally fixated on making sure that boys and girls not only “know” “what they are,” but communicate it clearly to others. This is especially true for boys. We no longer think twice about girls who wear pants, but when women first started doing so, it was shocking and revolutionary. It meant, for example, that they could ride bicycles and be independent. Only this past spring was a 200-year-old law banning women from wearing trousers revoked in Paris.

But many girls now have the flexibility to be creative with their clothes, to use more colors, to dress with flair and generally enjoy a broader range of options when it comes to appearance than boys do. There are downsides, of course, because accessorizing in these ways is actually part of a bigger problem, namely, your entire gender being treated as an accessory itself. On the other hand, boys are far more strictly confined in their choices. Boys wearing skirts as a matter of daily habit, in the United States, is as shocking an idea as trousers for women were at the turn of the last century. Those who challenge limits are regularly mocked, bullied and penalized by peers and adults, especially when it comes to school dress codes. While most schools make provisions for girls to wear pants, very few include skirt options for boys who might want to wear them, for whatever reason. For example, Warren Evans, a student in Maryland, was suspended for wearing a skirt. For some people the simple idea of a boy wanting to wear a skirt, ever, is bizarre.

2. Hair. Only the most confident of boys, with a supportive family, can sport lengthy locks. Razzing and teasing often ensues. As one mother of a mop-headed boy put it, people considered it a form of “middle-class abuse” to allow her son to grow his hair. After, say, a “sissy” comment from a grandfather, or taunts from playground bullies, adults at schools often get involved. It’s easy to find news of boys suspended and expelled for growing their hair, even if they’re growing it to donate to cancer patients. What are children supposed to take away from these experiences? That boys should never look “like girls”? That they cannot express themselves freely? Or care for others? That all these things are punishable offenses?

3. Products. What do we do with girly things? When adult men mock one another by denigrating little girls, boys learn to do the same thing. Take men’s professional sports where pink locker rooms are designed to demoralize opponents and girls’ backpacks are used to humiliate rookies. Or comedy: I have to believe that Will Ferrell is a smart and funny enough man to make a 90-minute movie without mocking little girls (in a non-satirical way) for a profit, but so far, no banana. At best, these are lazy actions. At worst, they are shallow validations of masculinity at the expense of girls and women. Girls (like the Star Wars lunch box girl) and boys (My Princess Son) regularly encounter children who, even in preschool, are gender rule enforcers. Some of them have parents who stand up for them, write books, build communities and launch social movements. But what about all the others whose parents don’t?

4. Sports. Ballet? Synchronized swimming? Figure skating? These sports are dominated by girls and women not for physical reasons but for cultural ones. Girls can play sports like these, or others that have traditionally been thought of as boys’ sports (though they may be excluded from some sports, or taken less seriously as athletes than their male peers). Boys are frequently barred from sports seen as for girls. As a matter of act, the most “boyish” are often encouraged to play … football. This a game where boys, despite what we’re learning about brain injuries, have until recently been uniformly taught to “play through the pain” (which is another way to say ignore your feelings and emotions), where coaches regularly insult boys with sex-based pejoratives and where girls quite literally can almost only be, with a few exceptions, supportive and on the margins.

5. Stories. Girls regularly immerse themselves in stories with male protagonists and identify with male heroes, boys and men. But boys aren’t encouraged to identify with female protagonists or to idolize women as heroes to anywhere near the same degree. Fifty-seven percent of children’s books published each year have male protagonists, versus 31 percent female. If the books feature animals, 100 percent of them have male characters and only 33 percent have female characters, often cast as mothers or romantic interests. The average number of books featuring male characters in the title of the book is 36.5 percent versus 17.5 percent for female. Statistics about television and movies are the same, where fewer than one out of three (28 percent) of the speaking characters (both real and animated) are female. It’s not only a quantitative imbalance, but also a qualitative one in which girls and women are misrepresented. Immediately after girls watch television, their self-esteem drops. (This is true of all children except young white boys.)

This all happens way before boys’ sexuality becomes an issue and when boys are subjected to pervasive messages telling them to objectify girls, be sexually promiscuous and boast about it. No wonder some men are able to go through life never once considering what it’s like to be a woman or why it matters.

Rigid gender rules and polarized sex-segregated ideas about everything from preschool playgroups to workplace dynamics come at great cost to everyone. And when parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders and pop culture all insist on the importance of an exaggerated and binary gender dichotomy it is hard to see how children can resist. It’s not as though Julia Serano’s “Whipping Girl” has made it to many mainstream lists of parental how-to books.

And restrictive boy codes turn into restrictive man codes. Forcing boys to reject all “feminine” aspects of themselves means not teaching them to be fully human. It reduces their ability to be flexible, adaptable and nimble when encountering new situations. It reduces their opportunities for happiness.

Empathy is essential to changing this. Boys with sisters in households where gender roles are stereotypical are far more likely to grow up to be conservative men with a similar reliance on stereotypes. They end up, often, as benevolent sexists out of sync with the reality of women’s lives, but, worse, actively involved in making sure they are not successful in the workplace. One of the things that challenges their beliefs as adults, interestingly, is having daughters, something researchers call a “warming effect.”

People who claim to have egalitarian ideals while wringing their hands about a boy crisis in education are all the while advocating the exact course of action that limits boys in the first place: a greater emphasis on sex segregation and debunked, essentialist ideas about brains, gender and roles in life. The boy crisis we should be focusing on is how “boys will be boys” ideas and sexist media leave boys ill-equipped to function in diverse societies. School aren’t emasculating boys, American masculinity is dehumanizing them.

Documentary - The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men

This is an educational documentary meant, I assume, for university campuses. Sounds pretty similar to Jackson Katz's Tough Guise. Here some of the main points of the film, according to the supplemental materials.

Key Points
• The filmmaker admits that he grew up in “bro culture,” pointing to his background in sports and music.
• He then suggests that boys today are being raised in the same sexist ways he was raised.
• But he underlines a key difference between then and now: he claims that the sexism inherent in today’s “bro” culture is far more dangerous than in the past.
• The primary aim of the film, he says, is to understand the variety of ways that this increasingly dangerous strain of sexism continues to be lauded and defined as cool by mainstream media and mainstream male culture.

You can also read a transcript of the film (here)and a study guide for the film (here). Below is a low-resolution full-length preview of the film.

The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men

Filmmaker Thomas Keith, a professor of philosophy at California State University, Long Beach, provides an engrossing look at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Breaking down a range of contemporary media forms targeted explicitly at young men, Keith teases out the main maxims of "bro culture" and "the bro code," and examines how this seemingly ironic mentality reinforces misogyny and gender violence in the real world. Whether he's looking at movies and music videos that glamorize womanizing, pornography that trades in the brutalization of women, comedians who make fun of sexual assault, or the recent groundswell in men's magazines and cable TV shows that revel in reactionary myths of American manhood, the message Keith uncovers in virtually every corner of our "entertainment" culture is clear: that it's not only normal -- but cool -- for boys and men to control and humiliate women. Along the way, The Bro Code makes a powerful case that there's nothing normal, natural, or inevitable about this toxic ideal of American manhood, and challenges young people to fight back against the resurgent idea that being a "bro" -- and a man -- means glorifying sexism, bullying, and abuse.

Featuring interviews with Michael Kimmel, Robert Jensen, Shira Tarrant, J.W. Wiley, Douglas Rushkoff, Eric Anderson, and Neal King.

Sections:
Intro (2:15)
Step 1: Train Men to Womanize (18:03)
Step 2: Immerse Men in Porn (13:25)
Step 3: Make Rape Jokes (11:33)
Step 4: Obey the Masculinity Cops (12:22)

Viewer discretion advised : Contains violent & sexual imagery and profanity.

Filmmaker Info

Written and produced by Thomas Keith
Director of Photography: Michael Enriquez
Additional Photography: Mitch Lemos
Editing: Thomas Keith

Filmmaker's Bio

DR. THOMAS KEITH | Director, Writer, Producer

Dr. Thomas Keith teaches philosophy at California State University, Long Beach and California Polytechnic University. He specializes in American philosophy and pragmatism with an emphasis on issues of race, class, and gender. In 2008, Dr. Keith directed and produced the bestselling film, Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture, which is used in classrooms around the world.

In What Is a Superhero?, psychologist Robin S. Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan (Co-Editors) explore this idea and mainstream of American comic and film history from a variety of perspectives. Here is the publisher's ad copy for the book:

It's easy to name a superhero--Superman, Batman, Thor, Spiderman, the Green Lantern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rorschach, Wolverine--but it's not so easy to define what a superhero is. Buffy has superpowers, but she doesn't have a costume. Batman has a costume, but doesn't have superpowers. What is the role of power and superpower? And what are supervillains and why do we need them?

In What is a Superhero?, psychologist Robin Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan explore this question from a variety of viewpoints, bringing together contributions from nineteen comic book experts--including both scholars in such fields as cultural studies, art, and psychology as well as leading comic book writers and editors. What emerges is a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most popular of pop-culture figures. Writer Jeph Loeb, for instance, sees the desire to make the world a better place as the driving force of the superhero. Jennifer K. Stuller argues that the female superhero inspires women to stand up, be strong, support others, and most important, to believe in themselves. More darkly, A. David Lewis sees the indestructible superhero as the ultimate embodiment of the American "denial of death," while writer Danny Fingeroth sees superheroes as embodying the best aspects of humankind, acting with a nobility of purpose that inspires us. Interestingly, Fingeroth also expands the definition of superhero so that it would include characters like John McClane of the Die Hard movies: "Once they dodge ridiculous quantities of machine gun bullets they're superheroes, cape or no cape." 

From summer blockbusters to best-selling graphic novels, the superhero is an integral part of our culture. What is a Superhero? not only illuminates this pop-culture figure, but also sheds much light on the fantasies and beliefs of the American people.

Interesting stuff. I think most boys who grew up in the 1970s were comic book fans and most of read superhero comics, either Stan Lee's Marvel Universe (Spider Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Fantastic Four, and so on) or the DC Comics Universe (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, The Flash, Aquaman, and the Justice League).

I knew I could never be Superman, being from Earth and all, but Batman was just smart and had really cool toys - I could do that. Boys often saw these characters (almost certainly unconsciously) as role models.

In the end, a Superhero, for me, was someone who sacrificed their own safety and sometimes happiness to keep the world safe from villains. Gender, planet, or species, super powers or not - none of that matters. Superheroes are those who serve good and resist evil.

Rosenberg recently stopped in at Google to talk about her new book and our ideas about superheroes.

* * * * *

Robin Rosenberg, "What is a Superhero" | Talks At Google

Published on Aug 22, 2013

Robin Rosenberg, Geoff Klock, Tom DeFalco, and Danny Fingeroth, "What is a Superhero"

What is a superhero? Everyone knows, right? And yet everyone seems to have a different answer. If asked, most people will say that a superhero is a fictional character with "superhuman" abilities or powers — and one who uses those abilities for the common good. Some might add that superheroes wear costumes. But this is only part of the story. 

In this innovative collection of essays, renowned psychologist Robin Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan explore the question "What is a superhero?" from a variety of viewpoints. What is the role of power and superpower? Heroism? The environment? How is the superhero a metaphor? Perhaps most intriguing, what are super villains and why do we need them? These and many other fascinating topics are taken up in this exciting new book. With essays from scholars and commentary by the writers and creators themselves, including exclusive material from Stan Lee, Danny Fingeroth, and their peers, What is a Superhero? is the first volume to provide a true synthesis and reflection of the state of superheroes in our culture today.