The recent mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso have fueled the ongoing national conversation about masculinity and violence. For today’s show, we sit down with some experts to hash out what masculinity is, what it means in society, and what we can do to address cultures of violence and aggression.
Our guests are Ronald Levant, professor of psychology at the University of Akron and a pioneer in the study of men and masculinity; Joel Wong, professor and department chair in counseling and educational psychology at Indiana University and co-author with Dr. Levant of The Psychology of Men and Masculinities (American Psychological Association, 2017); and Kristen Barber, associate professor of sociology and director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Southern Illinois University.
They share findings from their research and offer their perspectives on masculinity, #NotAllMen, the usefulness of the term “toxic masculinity,” men and the #MeToo movement, and the gendered violence behind mass shootings, sexual assault, and domestic abuse. Along the way, they take up the challenges and opportunities of parenting and the urgent need for institutional and structural change.