Masculinities at Dartmouth

I am coming to the end of my time here at Dartmouth, and over the years I have been a part of many communities. With that said, there are a few that have stood out the most based on certain aspects. One pertaining to the masculinity of a male or group of males, would be the Dartmouth football team. From the outside it is clear that a team of all males, who love to lift weights and hit each other, masculinity is an important characteristic we all share. Yet, with that assumption, there is more to this masculinity that very few people witnesses first hand. That place being the locker room. A setting that many members of the community express themselves with little to no filter, whether its about their sexuality, women, their social life, etc. I personally find myself correcting those too ignorant or immature enough, when something that is said, crosses the line. Whether its talking about woman with a derogatory term or getting too detailed about a situation that I am sure the woman involved would not be to keen about you explaining, the locker room is overflowing with men trying to assert their masculinity.

One thing that can be for certain, is when you have a 120 member community, not everyone will share the same interests or characteristics. There are those who are white, upper-class males, with conservative views, who don’t care much about how masculine they are to their teammates, because no matter what, being successful after college will be the most masculine thing in their eyes. Then you have the white males, who are in their first or second year, who aren’t too sure about their future, but they know exactly what they’re doing this weekend. Drinking with their bros after a win that afternoon, you cannot get more masculine than this. Now you have those who are African American, who despite being the minority for many years, have almost reached the point of being 50% of the team. Masculinity for us can be hard to express because of the stereotypes that are “expected” from us.

In many eyes, violence and hyper sexuality, make up the undesirable black man. A man that cannot express himself freely without someone or society itself seeing it as unacceptable by stamping a stereotype on his forehead when those characteristics are far from what he stands for as a human-being. You try to be yourself, but then you are left out of certain “masculine” situations. So in order to gain that back, the only reasonable answer you see is conforming to white society so that you are not stereotyped. Now that my friend, is the wrong answer despite it being the reasonable one in the moment. Holding on to your own, expressive, black masculinity is important and conforming to something you’re not because of stereotypes will not solve the problem. Yet, what I have come to realize from my experience and my close friends, is that the situation is a double-edged sword. You have the stereotypes on one end and your own black community on the other, waiting for you to be something you’re not so that you can then be ostracized.

Masculinity itself may be easy to define, but for those like me and many people on this campus, defining our own black masculinity is far from the answer you find in the dictionary.