What makes an issue universally relevant to a student body? Does it have to affect every student personally? Does it have to be neutral in every ethnic, gender and social category to resonate with the most amount of people? Universal appeal sometimes means the effect on the whole rather than on the individuals that compose it.

You may not be one of the women who is intimidated by entering the ruthless world of political contests, and you may not even be involved enough to know whether you are represented by a man or a woman, but the issue affects the apathetic as much as the die-hards.

Some will criticize us for taking a seemingly one-sided approach to an issue, but it’s not our aim to lay blame, at least not in this case. We aim to explore systemic issues so that the greater student body is educated enough to discuss it among their peers.

It is in your best interest to be as knowledgeable as possible on the issues that affect the people around you, because those people will be your peers for the rest of your life, not only the next few years. These are the issues that affect my sister, my editors, my fellow human beings, so it is my responsibility to ensure that every ounce of scrutiny is expended on the topic.

We’re not asking you to solve these problems, we’re asking you to become aware that there is one, so you can become involved insofar that, as childhood PSAs would tell us, “knowing is half the battle.”

We do our best to touch upon as wide a variety of issues as we can, but like any publication, time and space are limiting factors, so if there is an issue that you think we are turning a blind eye to, just tell us. You’ll find that we are pretty receptive to new ideas, if you make the effort to inform us. It is way more effective than criticizing The Sil in your social justice circlejerks.

And if we seem a bit heavy-handed at times, it’s because some issues need an incredibly strong push.

There is a noticeable gap in the percentage of women that make up the McMaster Student Representative Assembly.

Only 34.3 percent of the SRA is female and none of the executives on the Board of Directors are women.

These results put McMaster eighth amongst nine major research universities in Ontario compared in terms of representation of men and women on student governing bodies.

In the last SRA election, almost all the female students who ran won their seats, so the absence seems to be from a lack of female students putting their names forward rather than students being unwilling to elect women.

The gender gap has led some to question whether targeted strategies to create a more diverse student government should be considered.

A male dominated history

Although McMaster consistently ranks among Ontario’s best universities, McMaster is the second worst when it comes to gender equity in student government.

Of the 35 students and elected executives on the SRA, only 12 are women. Furthermore, of the six SRA standing committees elected by the SRA, only one has a female commissioner.

The Student Representative Assembly is the MSU’s legislative body and it plays an integral role in creating MSU policy and running services on campus. The MSU has a budget of over $13 million dollars.

The lack of female representatives is most apparent in the highest-ranking positions of student government. There are currently no women amongst the President and Vice Presidents.

This trend has been fairly consistent throughout McMaster’s history. The MSU President has always been male, with only four exceptions. One recent exception, Siobhan Stewart served as president from 2011-2012.

“It’s important to have the voices of many not just women, but different communities and different perspectives” said Stewart. “It’s not just an issue within the MSU it’s an issue within society.”

The Vice Presidents have also been predominantly male.

Of the 33 Vice-Presidents over the past 11 years, only ten have been women. Moreover, women have been significantly underrepresented in the VP-finance position (no women elected in 11 year) and VP-administration (only two women in eleven years).

Although the gender imbalance might have been a product of a predominantly male student body in the past, this is no longer a possible explanation, because female students now outnumber men in most faculties, and overall at an undergraduate level at McMaster.

A problem stemming from socialization

The majority of the women elected as vice-presidents have served under the education portfolio. However, even in this sub-field women have been underrepresented compared to men.

This trend is evidence of the way socialization affects people’s choices.

“You may choose an area where you think there will be less dissonance between who you are and what people think of that role, it may be that people think that people may be more likely to see me as suitable candidate for the education portfolio rather than the finance portfolio, so it may be that ‘rational’ choices about what’s the place where your profile will have less disassociation with the position you’re aiming for,” said Professor Caroline Andrew, the director of the Institute on Governance at the University of Ottawa, and an expert on women and inclusivity in local governance.

The gender gap at universities might not only be a product of social norms; it may also contribute to the lack of women in leadership positions in society more broadly.

High ranking governance positions can lead to other important opportunities. For instance, last year’s MSU president David Campbell now studies at Harvard’s school of government.

“Deciding to run even at a municipal level, or provincial or federal, takes an act of deciding that you would be better than other people at doing this,” said Andrew.

“And I think that’s still, in terms of socialization for a lot of women, that’s a hard leap to make.”

In total, 80 percent of the female candidates who ran for SRA in the last election received seats.

This seems to indicate the lack of female representatives is not due to students being unwilling to vote for female students, but rather, a lack of women being willing to put their name on the ballot due to systemic barriers.

One way to address these systemic barriers is by creating an ad-hoc group of SRA members. And yet, currently the SRA doesn’t have any such group.

“The SRA is elected by the students, for the students. By virtue of the election process, the SRA is representative of the student body. The creation of ad-hoc groups is completely governed by the will of the assembly,” said Mike Cheung, Speaker of the SRA.

Should underrepresented groups be specifically targeted?

Zaynab Al-waadh and Lindsay Robinson are McMaster student researchers involved in the recently published Women and Diversity EXCLerator Report.

They see McMaster’s underrepresentation of female student leaders in the most visible positions as symptomatic of a lack of women leaders in other sectors in Hamilton.

“When you constantly see the same kind of person, the same kind of people holding the top positions in clubs or student groups… you have the assumption that’s the kind of person that is a leader,” said Al-waadh, who is in her fourth year of her Bachelor of Social Work.

They say strategies to specifically engage women should be considered at McMaster.

“Gender quotas can be a good idea if representation is really low,” said Robinson, a fourth year Political Science and Labour Studies student. But she says these tools should be implemented cautiously.

“At the same time I don’t think we should have token females only representing female interest.”

Without a culture of inclusivity, gender quotas can be divisive.

“The SRA has discussed having seats for marginalized groups… and we always end up shooting [those ideas] down,” said Naomi Pullen, a former SRA member and the current Deputy Returning Officer of MSU Elections.

Various ways to increase diversity

The elections department is interested in increased promotional strategies.

“We are working with the advocacy street team and looking at how we advertise our elections,” said Pullen. “We are really just starting to talk about it right now.”

She notes that women are fully represented among part-time managers, which are non-elected positions.

“It’s not the women aren’t interested in being part of student leadership positions, but there seems to be something about the election process that’s prohibitive,” she said.

Andrew said that peer-to-peer encouragement might be the best way to engage women.

“I think you could have some of the people who are part of the student representatives and some of the women who are on them to maybe directly try to seek out likely candidates, and to say ‘I think you’d be good at this, have you ever thought about it?’”

This strategy could be particularly effective for engaging diverse students from other underrepresented perspectives.

“I think the MSU should take a more proactive stance in perhaps holding information sessions, or reaching out to different groups... because no one really knows how to be on the SRA. It’s very ambiguous—you have to be really involved in the student union to know,” said Al-waadh.

“They can tell people, ‘by the way it’s important that if you’re a woman, or you’re this, or you’re that, we want you.’”

Given that this imbalance is not unique to McMaster, the Ontario University Student Alliance might be equally interested in systemic solutions.

“OUSA has to report to the SRA every so often, and I haven’t heard of them doing anything like this,” said Pullen. “Even OUSA leadership is male heavy.”

It is up to the current student leaders to take initiative not only at McMaster, but at all universities in Ontario to ensure the next generation of student government accurately reflects the student body.

By: Suzy Flader

On Sept. 20, 2014, actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson gave a speech at the New York UN headquarters discussing the new HeForShe campaign. HeForShe is a “solidarity movement for gender equality that brings together one half of humanity in support of the other of humanity, for the entirety of humanity.” In her speech Watson argued that in order for women’s rights to be taken seriously, society needs to start tackling male issues that seem to be underlying causes. In her words, “it is time that we all start to perceive gender on a spectrum, instead of as sets of opposing ideals.”

Despite the initial positive responses and its big splash on social media, critics have found flaws with Watson’s argument. Mainly, it is argued that the type of feminism she is supporting is too “watered-down” and “mainstream” to have an actual effect. While it may not have been a perfect speech, it did bring up an interesting point: how do our prescribed gender roles affect us and others in ways we do not necessarily think about?

Globally, we see examples of how gender norms and values are negatively affecting our health. In various parts of the world women are unable able to get to clinics because they are not allowed to travel alone. Teenage boys die in accidents because they are expected to be “bold” risk-takers. Women contract HIV because societal standards encourage a husband’s promiscuity, while preventing women from insisting on condom use. Generally, a country’s lung cancer mortality rate is much higher for men, because smoking is considered an attractive marker for masculinity while it is frowned upon for women.

Evident in these examples is that the gender issues in healthcare are not restricted to developing countries. As Watson reminded us in her speech, there is not one country in the world that can currently claim women and men are given equal rights. It can be easy for us as Canadians to forget about this, as it seems strange for a developed country to lack something as basic as equality for all citizens. Also evident from these examples is that gender norms do not exclusively affect women; societal expectations of men can also negatively impact their health.

The WHO Gender and Health Department’s goal is to “increase health care professionals’ awareness of the role of gender norms, values, and inequality in perpetuating disease, disability, and death, and to promote societal change with a view to eliminating gender as a barrier to good health.” While it is great that a global organization is attempting to solve these problems, it is up to us to start making actual change. Emma Watson’s address may have its flaws, but there were certainly aspects of it that should make us reflect on how we perceive both others and ourselves. Are there certain expectations that we have that may not be conducive to promoting gender equality?

Love it or hate it, Watson’s speech should make us think about how we might want to change our gender norms – not only because it’s the equitable thing to do, but also because it’s the healthier choice.

A few days ago, Emma Watson shared a message with the world that news sites called “game-changing.” To feminists, the message wasn’t new or radical, but it shook the social media universe and left the world in awe. Emma Watson nervously speaking in front of the UN, proclaiming that feminism is misunderstood, and using her fame to make it mainstream, was a big deal for gender equality.

But chances are that it didn’t get through to everyone. An online marketing group “Rantic Marketing,” created an elaborate hoax that threatened to release nude pictures of Emma Watson. Although this was a hoax, it wasn’t fully harmless, as it still used the threat of a highly unconsensual act to get its point across. The resident male misogynists of 4Chan have already shown us how dangerous they are to the fight for gender equality, and this hoax was utterly unnecessary.

We’ve learned the obnoxious way that most men don’t like being called out on their privilege, words, or actions. They get defensive, upset, and angry. Relating with men has always been one of feminism’s hardest struggles. How can women equalize gender disparities if men aren’t willing to let go of the power they hold from being born in an oppressive society?

Emma Watson did the diplomatic thing. She called for men to take action. She framed it in a way that made it clear that men, too, suffer from the consequences of misogyny. She shared the hopes and dreams of mainstream feminism, and the men of the world mostly listened.

But feminism can’t always have a woman who spent her teenage years working for one of the world’s most successful film franchises as its spokesperson.

In our everyday encounters, the spokespeople of feminism are members of your social groups, your family, or your campus. The average spokesperson of feminism isn’t someone who you spent years watching and reading about, and they definitely can’t deliver a powerful speech every time you screw up.

We’re all brought up in a sexist society, and in one way or another, we have all perpetuated it. It can be anything from using sexist language while playing video games to slut-shaming and victim-blaming. It’s so pervasive that at times it seems normal, and that’s the most concerning thing about it.

Women and feminist men don’t want to be the ones who tell you to “stop saying that” every single time. We don’t want to turn your “joke” into a lesson about sexism. But, for the sake of creating a better society, we have to. Every time we don’t, we feel guilty for letting yet another microagression rest unchallenged.

Feminist activists, who constantly stand up for us, get understandably frustrated and angry with the lack of cooperation from people who reject feminism without taking the time to understand it. Feminists are often mocked for being angry and “man-hating,” but the only reason they bother to express their rage is because they know you can do better.

You may be tired of feminists calling you out on every little thing, but trust me, we’re tired of it, too.

Sam Godfrey
Managing Editor

“This is my boyfriend, and this is my girlfriend.”

My friend gestured to the tall boy standing to her right, and then to me, standing to her left. Repeating a scenario we’d played out before, the tall boy and I waved politely, offering no explanation for our introduction.

The sentence is straightforward enough, and yet was met almost without fail by confusion. People tried to reconcile their notions of sexuality, romance, relationships and nomenclature all at once. They seemed unable to slot us into their hierarchy of relationships without a clear indication of which of us – (or maybe neither or both) – were having sex with each other.

This simple interaction speaks to many widely held preconceptions of relationships, several of which I find to be not only annoying, but in many cases harmful. Primarily, I think it speaks most clearly to a societal focus on ‘couplehood’ as the most important and desirable form of relationship. By ‘couplehood’ I mean the state of being in a romantic, sexual relationship with one other person.

But why should this be assumed to be the highest form of relationship? Is there something about romantic or sexual attraction that makes it inherently superior to platonic bonds? Of course not.

But when those assumptions are in place, like any generalized assumption, they have negative impacts. They can be mere annoyances, like people asking your partner something on your behalf, as if being in a sexual/romantic arrangement with someone makes the two of you a single organism, negating the need to interact with both of you. But they can also be more detrimental than that, having the very real ability to erase the possibility of other forms of relationships.

Consider the scenario I described above, where my friend introduced both a boyfriend and a girlfriend. By introducing me as her girlfriend, after she had already introduced a boyfriend, people became confused. Either I was not her girlfriend, or he was not her boyfriend. The need for this clarification posed absolutely no effect on them to save to be able to better classify us in their minds.
And what of polyamorous relationships? What if we were in a lovely three-person triangle of romance and sexual attraction? For the majority of people, considering this form of relationship is not even on their radar, let alone within their ability to accept it as legitimate and healthy.

And to consider yet another perhaps atypical type of relationship: what of those formed by people who simply do not, can not, experience romantic and/or sexual attraction? They are people too, and their love and intimacy is not any weaker because of these stipulations. To think or say so would be close-minded, hurtful, and condescending.

My friend chose to use people’s preconceptions of relationship hierarchies to her advantage, choosing her words to indicate not the type of relationships she was in, but rather their importance to her. She wanted to make it clear that, regardless of who she was having sex with or not, the both of us were incredibly loved by her, and she incredibly loved by us.

Let me make it clear that I am not harping on sexual/romantic couples. They’re wonderful! Even considering the theory of infinite universes, there exists no version of myself where I don’t love people in love. It’s beautiful, it’s special and it makes them happy. I would be a terrible person to say that their happiness is built on a sham. More than that, I’d be completely wrong. For some people, a sexual/romantic relationship is the most important relationship, and their partner is the most important person to them.

What I am saying is that for many other people, this is not the be-all end-all of human interaction. I am saying that we should all consider that being in love isn’t necessarily confined to sexual/romantic relationships. I am saying that for many people, couplehood is one relationship among many, each as special and unique as the rest, each having importance dictated by things other than feelings of romance and sexual attraction.

Some of you may still be asking, “So are you her girlfriend? Or are you just friends?”

Well, no. To both. She’s not my girlfriend and I’m not hers. But to preface the word ‘friend’ with ‘just’ is equally inaccurate. We are friends, we love each other, we’re in love with each other.

I’m not asking you to feel guilty about your own relationships, or saying that you’re wrong if romance and sex help you feel close to a person. What I am hoping is that you’ll consider changing the way you think about relationships: those of others and your own. Consider that for myself, and many others, there is quite simply no such thing as “just friends”.

In reply to “Hey girl, let’s smash the patriarchy” by Kacper Niburski, published Jan. 16, 2014 on A8 (Posted as “Daily Dose: Feminism without women” on thesil.ca)

Ana Qarri
The Silhouette

Gentlemen, hold on to your boxers.
The idea that feminism is for everyone isn’t new. It’s not revolutionary, it did not grace the world for the first time on page A9 of the Silhouette. It’s an idea that feminists have been repeating over and over for decades. If I had a dime for every time I’ve said it, I would still be drowning in student debt, but at least I’d have enough money for a beer.

We know feminism should be for everyone. We know feminism isn’t a movement only for women. It’s because we know this that we can’t stop talking about it.

So, yes, Kacper is right. Men are and should be part of the solution. Men are important to the movement. Men should be feminists, they should be involved, they should care, because feminism is for them too.

Feminism isn’t isolated to “one gender, one lifestyle.” It’s not isolated to one way of interacting with the world. Feminism is diverse, it’s multi-dimensional and complex. Feminism takes into account so many things that a claim like that is hardly justifiable. Feminism has never attempted to alienate men. I’m not saying that there haven’t been feminists who have happened to hate men. I’m not denying that there are people – feminist or not - who will hate a group solely based on their gender. Those people exist, but they’re not really who we’re talking about when we refer to feminists. The perception of feminists as men-hating, men-blaming women is hopefully one that, as reasonable and educated individuals, we’ve all put behind us.

The first feminist that I met was my high school friend Micah. He was challenging our friends, our teachers, and our gender norms before I even knew what feminism was. He was and continues to be a supportive ally, and I love him for it. He was the reason why I felt safe calling people out on their blatant sexism, on their homophobic and slut-shaming slurs, on the idiotic teenage jokes that undoubtedly included the words “kitchen” and “sandwich” somewhere in them.

As a feminist, I’m aware how important men can be to the movement. I’m aware that men will listen more if other men are telling them that feminism isn’t just a bunch of men-hating lesbians whose mission in life is to kill off anyone who gets in their way.

Men can make great allies. They can create safe spaces for women. They can start discussions. They can reflect with their peers about how they might be perpetuating sexism. They can talk about how the current societal norms are affecting them too, how it might be affecting what’s expected of them, what their role in society is, how it’s impacting their mental health. Women should do all this too. Women can also perpetuate sexism. Everyone can. But unlike men, women don’t get the same privileges that men are born with in a patriarchal system.

Since men already have all this privilege, wouldn’t it be easier then, you might be wondering, to just let a few of these men who “get it” be in charge? Wouldn’t that solve all of our problems? Let men “lead the whole damn thing.”

After all, as Kacper put it, “If men are in charge, it often takes them to cause and want the shift in paradigms.”

But why is it that men need to be in charge to want to cause a paradigm shift? Why do we need to perpetuate just what we’re trying to tear apart? Do we really think so little of men? Do we think that they can’t appreciate a cause that they’re not leading, that they can’t make any connections and lack the critical thinking skills to understand why feminism is important even if they don’t see themselves represented in the leadership?

I do want men to walk alongside me and this “flurry of hollering and hooting women.” I don’t, however, want men to lead a movement that’s trying to empower women, trying to challenge male privilege and gender expectations. I don’t want men to be our saviours. I want them to be our allies. The male perspective is present everywhere in our society. It’s present in our literature, in our music, in our politics. So we don’t need men who will try to take over the movement. We need men who will let us speak. We need men who recognize that there are stories to share, that there are voices that have been silenced and need to be heard.

I don’t think I’ve ever met or will ever meet someone who hasn’t perpetuated sexism at some point in their life. Sexist behaviour isn’t a male-isolated phenomenon, but male privilege is.

There are a myriad of ways in which men can use their privilege to bring forth, alongside women and people of all genders, great strides of feminist development. Leading the whole damn thing, however, is not one of them.

 

Ladies, hold on to your knickers. Things are going to get messy for what follows in a pudding-like consistency is an argument for feminism without women.

Listen. I recognize I’m a male – a white one at that – and anything I say will be a shameful parade of my possibly oppressive, certainly privileged status. I will never understand the plights, the struggles, or the difficulties that riddle women daily. Please understand, though, that I’m not speaking for you or your individual experiences that I can never know. I will not make a blanket statement as if I know you. Instead in this entire piece, I’m speaking for me and speaking to what white, privileged males like myself can do in a culture that has run amok with political correctedness and blatant hypocrisies, and that fosters invisible modes of dominance and false conceptions of normality that are fads on the order of a yo-yo.

Follow me for a second. Far too often has feminism been isolated to one gender, one lifestyle, one personal form of identification: a woman. It is dressed up as a battle about women for women by women. It concerns women’s rights, women’s issues, and women’s equality. Men are not part of this system; they have caused it. They created this mess of a patriarchy. They are the problem. They are the dicks in every sense of the word.

For the most part, this is undeniable. Historical paradigms of oppression can almost always be reduced down to a few rich, white men cat-fighting about anything and everything. Yet I diametrically oppose the thought of separation, whether it is in the processes that led to feminism or those that still fuel it. Such thinking has only led to the shambled together society we find ourselves in now.

More importantly, however, is that restricting feminism to females inadvertently supports the same injustices it is trying to quell. By denying men as some part of the solution, the construction of feminism is alienating one section of the population. In pursuit of equality, it cannot be unequal. Building a basic assumption of feminism does exactly this, and worse yet, it gives men a reason to decry it as poppycock, an issue that is not important to them because it is not about them. Once steadfast and widespread, men no longer question their gender or its dominance, and the inequality spins on and on and on.

But this is wrong. If men are the problem, they are also needed as some of the first steps in a long-form solution. If men have torn the world asunder, they need to be there for the repair. In fact, they, alongside the flurry of hollering and hooting women from all of gender classifications, sexual orientations and racial identifies, need to try to lead the whole damn thing.

This might be sexist for me to say, but to battle sexism, one must first be sexist. It seems silly and arrogant to suggest, but this is an old truth: to defeat the enemy, one must know them first.

Think about feminism’s various strides. Though the irrefutable persistence of women everywhere have propelled and focused the various movements both in mainstream and smaller, local clusters, it is a few men that have helped catalyze the change that millions of women dreamed of. If men are in charge, it often takes them to cause and want the shift in paradigms. Otherwise, the first gear never moves and the whole machine doesn’t run.

I know, I know: the sentence seems like yet another man taking yet another success from women. But it is not, at least not at the the most initial stages of a movement where it takes the prime-movers to ensure sustainable, lasting change.

While this may not ostensibly be the case any longer – women are found in high corporate positions, they can often choose how they are represented in media, they have sometimes empowered their bodies and sexuality – it does not deny the importance of the claim. Allyship is not enough. We all need to fight. We all need to strive for excellence. And by accepting men as possible forces to advocate and facilitate female issues, rather than isolate them as perpetuators, one does not deny the issues importance or trivialize the concerns. In fact, the opposite occurs. Only by working together through education and dialogue can all become better.

When I suggest feminism without women, I am not talking about fe-men-ism or anything like that; I am talking about feminism for the rest of us.

I’m not speaking about the white, educated perspective; that is hogwash that has since served its time. Instead I’m talking about a Polish immigrant house mom working two jobs to feed her twin boys. I am talking about a ninety-year old Nigerian who is trying to buy a gender-neutral toy for her grandchild. I am talking about the four year old who has been told she can’t play with the boys.

But I am also talking about the boys and men everywhere who have woman dear to their lives, who are trying to help carve a way for their force, success, and experiences, and who get out of the way when its needed.

So know that this is not a white, male talking about feminism as though he understands the various, nuanced waves of suffering by millions of people. He never can. He never will.

But he is here to listen and hopefully offer a statement for us all: we cannot allow complacency to sit in. We do not need just women. That is not enough. We need men, children, elders, people of colour, of any orientation, of all faith systems and anything in between, from saints to sinners, politicians to garbage men, me to you. Because more than any one person, we need each other to fight against the world we’ve created by first tearing it apart.

Graphic by Ben Barrett-Forrest / Multimedia Editor

Kyle Park
The Silhouette

On Nov. 15, McMaster Health Sciences, in conjunction with contributions from Canadian women’s health advocate May Cohen, organized a double research lecture featuring the research of Marina Morrow and Don McCreary. Held at McMaster Innovation Park, the two lectures revolved on the relationship between gender and mental health, which addressed issues ranging from the historical discourses on female mental health to the current trends of male body image.

The conference began with Marina Morrow, an associate professor of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, who presented a lecture entitled “Women’s Mental Health: Beyond Gender Matter” which discussed mental health as a gendered construct.

As the crux of her argument, Morrow discussed the notion of “intersectionality,” a theoretical lens that acknowledges the systemic processes by which mental health is constituted through gender, sexuality, race, class and ability. Morrow proposed that the intersectional approach effectively enables feminist thought to expose inequities within the health system, acknowledge the diverse contexts of women’s lives, and deconstruct the relations of power with regulatory bodies such as policymaking.

Intersectionality is “an emerging research and policy paradigm which seeks to reveal the complex interactions among multiple social categories,” said Morrow.

In exemplifying mental health as "gendered", Morrow provided case study examples on suicide and diagnostic practices. One such story she spoke on was Amanda Todd, the fifteen-year-old high school student from British Columbia who was bullied to the point of depression and later suicide. Morrow articulated how Todd’s death reflects larger social structures at play in her therapy, that is, how health inequity is part of a “whole social gestalt.”

With diagnostic practices, Morrow argued how the women are main targets of the pharmaceutical industry for anti-anxiety and sleeping pills and bridges this trend to historical notions of women as “irrational and potentially hysteric” in contrast to men. In addressing the importance of her research, Morrow stated her intention in having this conversation is to “illuminate social and structural factors that influence the mental health and well-being of women and men.”

Morrow concluded her talk in calling for a social justice framework, a “gender and sex based analysis” on mental health and thinking about new ways to address policy change.

Don McCreary, adjunct professor of Psychology at Brock University spoke on the current research on male body image.

His presentation “Current Research in Boys’ and Men’s Body Image” commented on the erroneous presumption that men and boys are more satisfied with their bodies than females. His findings from numerous research studies suggested the complex many men possess to achieve a “muscular ideal” which he made clear as a culturally constructed ideal. McCreary terms the psychological disposition “muscular dysmorphia,” referring to one’s belief that they are smaller and skinnier than they actually are.

In contrast to the typical female psyche dealing with being ‘over’ weight, McCreary discussed how males are conditioned with a drive for physical bulk or muscularity. He went on to propose a correlative parallel between muscularity and masculinity whereby men who are ‘bigger’ view themselves as more ‘manly.’

Another study conducted by McCreary and his colleague Stanley Sadava brought to light the idea that underweight women and overweight men view themselves as healthier than if they were overweight or underweight respectively.

The conference concluded with an acknowledgement of the culturally constructed ideals defining gender. Although muscular dysmorphia is not acknowledged by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. McCreary stated he believes the condition to have significant ties obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In the concluding part of the lecture, McCreary emphasized how masculine muscularity, albeit a “cultural ideal,” possesses the potential for very real psychological effects on the male psyche.

Morrow and McCreary are still continuing their research in unpacking ideas of mental health and gender.

 

Amanda Watkins
LifeStyle Editor

For most of the year, I’m pretty content with the fact that I can’t grow facial hair.

And then November rolls around.

Movember. It’s a term we’ve all come to know and anticipate as it marks the one time of year when a bearded man stands for personal health and awareness.

With a small-scale start in 2003, a group of “Mo Bros” in Melbourne, Australia decided to grow out their facial hair to spread the word about men’s health. Now coined as Movember, a clever portmanteau of Moustache and November, what was once a small Aussie event is now an international campaign devoted to raising funds and awareness for prostate cancer research.

In 2012, the campaign officially included 29 participating countries, with over one million registered participants through their online charitable network.

The campaign is widely popular across the Hamilton and McMaster communities especially with the “McMO’sters” network that has been active and running for the last two years. Participating students are encouraged to officially register online and join the pre-existing McMaster team.

Now let’s get back to me growing facial hair.

As much as the event directly caters to the abilities of men on campus, female students are also encouraged to join in on the fun by raising money on behalf of a specific person or team taking part in the facial hair festivities.

And although taking part in Movember as a woman is equally as beneficial to the cause, it just isn’t as fun.

There are several campaigns that revolve around female-oriented causes, but none seem to have the gender pride pull that Movember offers to its gentleman participants. Although worthy commitments and campaigns, none seem to offer the same overt publicity and gimmicky excitement that bring together men during Movember.

I appreciate the work that all charitable organizations put forward with their campaigns, but wearing a somewhat sexualized “I love boobies” bracelet just isn’t the same as bonding with my “Mo Bros” over a natural facial buy cheap generic viagra accessory.

I’m a little jealous that men have the opportunity to so openly show something that unites their gender, while women have to hide any explicit features that define their femininity.

In an attempt to find a campaign that could have the same thrilling and hairy effects of Movember, Armpits for August was started up in the UK as a way to raise money and awareness for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome research. Similarly, the “No Shave November” idea promotes similar trends for women while supporting a variety of charities. Although both of these events were built on the same principle as Movember, the event isn’t as well received or popular due to the stigma around female body hair.

Although Movember supports a great cause and has earned a well-deserved amount of support and praise, I really wish there was a way for women to support their gender in a fun and inclusive way.

This November, I’ll sport the endearing title of a “Mo Sista” to support those growing for the cause. And to be honest, I will probably be unknowingly taking part in No Shave November. Girls may not be having as much fun, but at least we’re growing in the right direction.