{"id":14784,"date":"2018-07-19T02:05:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T09:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politicalhat.com\/?p=14784"},"modified":"2018-07-19T02:05:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T09:05:59","slug":"quick-takes-toxic-masculinity-in-kindergarten-in-video-games-in-pseudo-defense-of-not-so-toxicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2018\/07\/19\/quick-takes-toxic-masculinity-in-kindergarten-in-video-games-in-pseudo-defense-of-not-so-toxicity\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Takes &#8211; Toxic Masculinity: In Kindergarten; In Video Games; In Pseudo-Defense of Not-so-toxicity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Another &#8220;quick takes&#8221; on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The focus this time: Toxic Awesomeness<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;First, a little mood music:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YcfIGok1mMI\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Carrying on\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5372\" src=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/EaglewithFlag.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"203\" height=\"176\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Apparently &#8220;toxic masulinity&#8221; is so endemic, that it must be stopped as soon as the woke <a href=\"https:\/\/www.campusreform.org\/?ID=10966\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">educational elite<\/a> can get their hands on the little Patriarchs&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;A University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor is urging schools to implement &#8216;Men\u2019s Projects&#8217; to fight &#8216;toxic masculinity&#8217; in children as early as kindergarten.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In a recently published issue of On The Horizon, Kathleen Elliott argues that &#8216;finding ways to promote healthy masculinity early and to teach boys and young men to recognize, reject, and challenge simplified, toxic masculinity is essential for creating cultural change.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Men\u2019s Projects\u2014which typically probe participants to reflect on the ramifications of masculinity\u2014are increasingly commonplace on college campuses, and Elliott suggests that &#8216;many of goals and methods can be adopted in k-12 schools.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Citing the now-defunct University of Wisconsin-Madison Men\u2019s Project, Elliott explains that such programs educate male students on &#8216;intersectionality and the complexity of masculinity identities&#8217; while helping them &#8216;challenge simplified definitions of masculinity.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5371\" src=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/eag_line.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"37\" srcset=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/eag_line.gif 500w, https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/eag_line-300x22.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><!--more-->&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If you can&#8217;t get them in Kindergarten, they you&#8217;ll have to stop them before they choose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.campusreform.org\/?ID=10985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">video games<\/a> that those icky #GamerGaters think are spiffy&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;To earn a Master\u2019s degree from Mills College, recent graduate Taylor Sandusky created a &#8216;nonviolent dungeon crawler&#8217; video game to combat &#8216;toxic masculinity.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;&#8216;Plato\u2019s Evil Closet&#8217; is an open-source video game that Sandusky created for a Master\u2019s Thesis in Computer Science, which aims to &#8216;use video games to challenge white heteropatriarchy.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Plato\u2019s Evil Closet, Sandusky explains, is a &#8216;challenging non-violent dungeon crawler that stars a queer woman of color and acts as a metaphor for fighting white heteropatriarchy\u2014at its core, a system that privileges whiteness, heterosexuality and masculinity.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;&#8216;The dungeon represents white heteropatriarchy, and the various monsters represent aspects of this system,&#8217; writes Sandusky, adding that to win, the protagonist must &#8216;collect&#8217; a &#8216;diverse set&#8217; of &#8216;friends&#8217; to escape.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;&#8216;In order to escape the dungeon, the player needs at least two friends. If they try to exit before meeting this requirement, they are informed that the door is too heavy,&#8217; Sandusky reveals. &#8216;This is intended to represent the importance of solidarity. One person, or group, cannot escape the dungeon, or patriarchy, without the help of others.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Unlike many video games, Sandusky\u2019s game deliberately eschews both violence and competition, following a critique of games mounted by other academics.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5371\" src=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/eag_line.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"37\" srcset=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/eag_line.gif 500w, https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/eag_line-300x22.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;However, some unpersons <a href=\"https:\/\/www.campusreform.org\/?ID=10954\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disagree<\/a> about this entire &#8220;toxicity&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The professor who successfully convinced the U.S. Department of Education to investigate anti-male discrimination in academia is encouraging others to do the same.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;As Campus Reform has previously reported, University of Southern California (USC) professor Kursat Christoff Pekgoz filed Title IX complaints against both his own school and Yale University, alleging that they provide unfair educational opportunities and scholarships to women that exclude men.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In an unprecedented response, the Education Department\u2019s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) actually agreed to investigate, and while Pekgoz views this as a success, he believes there is more work to be done at other colleges to help ensure equality of opportunity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;To that end, Pekgoz has published a guide for others interested in challenging such policies, noting that while affirmative action for women is understandable from a historical perspective, it has become unnecessary because women are &#8216;no longer the underrepresented sex in colleges.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">TTFN.<\/p>\n<p><meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@PoliticHatBlog\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ThePoliticalHat\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Toxic Masculinity: In Kindergarten; In Video Games; In Pseudo-Defense of Not-so-toxicity\"\/><meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The focus this time: Toxic Awesomeness\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/EaglewithFlag.gif\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Another &#8220;quick takes&#8221; on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The focus this time: Toxic Awesomeness &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;First, a little mood music: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Carrying on\u2026 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Apparently &#8220;toxic &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2018\/07\/19\/quick-takes-toxic-masculinity-in-kindergarten-in-video-games-in-pseudo-defense-of-not-so-toxicity\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,17],"tags":[55,25,48],"class_list":["post-14784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-progressives","tag-gender","tag-higher-ed","tag-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14785,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14784\/revisions\/14785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}