By Logan Hall ’14
THE ROUNDUP
This year’s Summit topic is masculinity, a topic that is intended to change the way Brophy students act.
The topic of masculinity deals with how males should act and what it means to be a man.
“It’s looking at women’s issues and gender issues from the perspective of a man’s role in these issues,” said Mr. Ryan Hubbell.
The Summit will focus on four main pillars of masculinity: violence, media, sexuality and spirituality.
Mr. Hubbell studied masculinity in his graduate program, and a key component that he spent a lot of time focusing on was what makes men more violent.
According to Mr. Hubbell, most rapes and domestic violence crimes are committed by men.
“When we talk about rape or domestic violence, we usually label them as women’s issues; but I don’t see them as women’s issues, I see them as men’s issues,” Mr. Hubbell said.
Men are responsible for the way that women are portrayed in Hollywood and in magazines, according to Mr. Hubbell, and an important thing to look at is who is putting out these portrayals of women and why.
As for sexuality, the Summit is focusing on Brophy students’ attitudes towards women.
“We need to critique this innate link between the conquest of women and men, and how it is cool for guys to get girls,” Mr. Hubbell said.
Spirituality deals with how men and should be honest and loving. These traits are often not looked at as masculine traits, however Mr. Hubbell hopes that religion can help us overcome this.
“This is where God is going to call on us to defy the traditional masculine behavior,” Mr. Hubbell said.
According to Mr. Hubbell, our biggest issue at Brophy is casual mistreatment of girls.
Many teenage males just refer to this treatment of women as just a joke, but Mr. Hubbell said that it is not a joke to women, but a serious issue.
Summit planners hope the overall experience will change the way students think about how men are supposed to act, and change the idea of masculinity.
Student planner Kyle Chalmers ’13 plays an important role in the summit.
“I will have various tasks throughout the Summit but right now I am working on a workshop similar to what we did in the Summit two years ago on Globalization. I am coming up with a way to create profiles of different people and see if they can find an acceptable job, income, etc. that they can make enough to support themselves and/or their family,” Chalmers said.
Chalmers hopes to affect the way Brophy students think about women.
“I hope that Brophy students become more conscience of the way they treat and talk about women. We want them to make an effort to become sensitive about this issue especially since it can be so hard with culture around us today saying we are not manly if we are a feminist,” Chalmers said.
Chalmers started a club with Mr. Hubbell called the Good Men Project that specializes in what the summit is about.
“I hope that this summit causes students to look at their actions a little more in depth and to pause before doing something and ask why do guys have to do that,” Mr. Hubbell said.
Hubbell debuts Summit topic at assembly from The Brophy Roundup on Vimeo.
