The need to engage with men and boys about issues such as consent, healthy relationships, and preventing violence and abuse is more urgent than ever at a time when world leaders such as Donald Trump and spaces like the Manosphere are projecting dominating, destructive images of masculinity around the world. This certainly applies in Canada, where the spread of far-right politics next-door in the US is having a significant impact – and where Prime Minister Mark Carney is arguably demonstrating a different kind of leadership. 

Our guest, Landon Kenney, is someone who is working to show that men and boys don’t have to be angry, tough and violent – and that they can work together with women, girls and gender diverse people to create a more equitable and peaceful society. He coordinates the Male Allies Program for the Sexual Assault Support Centre of the Waterloo Region in Ontario (SASC), Canada.

In this episode, Landon tells us about the work that SASC and the Male Allies Program have been doing since 2008 to prevent sexual and gender-based violence with men, boys, and organisations such as Hockey Canada and the Ontario Hockey League. We discuss the importance of changing macho sporting cultures, highlighted by the sexual assault scandal in Canadian ice hockey in recent years. We also talk about hopeful shifts in cultural discourses about masculine norms, exemplified in the recent hugely popular Canadian TV series ‘Heated Rivalry’. We explore how masculinity is depicted in this powerful show, and the potential it has to help men and boys open up about intimacy, vulnerability, and sexuality.

Find out more:

• Sexual Assault Support Centre of the Waterloo Region
• SASC’s Public Education Resources
• The Male Allies Program
• Landon Kenney

We also discuss a new practical guide produced by the UK End Violence Against Women Coalition and others to help talk about the ways in which violence against women and girls is being weaponised for anti-immigration narratives: https://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/not-in-our-name-womens-rights-groups-reclaim-the-narrative-on-vawg/

Episode timeline:

• Intro
• What the Male Allies Program involves (02:41-04:29)
• How the program was initiated by the Sexual Assault Support Centre (04:29-07:48)
• Landon’s own journey into this work (07:48-11:00)
• Being accountable to women (11:00-17:36)
• The impacts violence prevention work has on men and boys (17:36-21:38)
• How Trump has affected Canadian society and Mark Carney's response (21:38-29:17)
• Break
• Working to create change in ice hockey and sport (29:26-33:07)
• Addressing hypermasculine sports cultures (33:07-36:46)
• The Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal (36:46-40:40)
• Heated Rivalry and its portrayal of masculinity (40:40-47:09)
• The impact of the show on Canadian society (47:09-50:53)
• Professional male athletes coming out as gay (50:53-53:34)
• The future for profeminist work in Canada (53:34-55:42)
• Conclusion (55:49-01:02:36)

More info:

• Gisèle Pelicot – ‘A Hymn to Life’
• Manon Garcia – ‘Living with Men’
• bell hooks – ‘The Will to Change’
• Steven Roberts – ‘Why straight men’s embrace of a queer sports romance TV show matters right now’
• Jacob Tierney
• Canada ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest

Music: 'Now is time', courtesy of Chaps' Choir and Dom Stichbury.

Hi everyone, and welcome to Now and Men, the podcast on changing masculinities, challenging norms.

It's Sandy Ruxton here with my co-host Stephen Burrell as always.

So how are you doing, Stephen?

Yeah, I'm good.

Thanks, Sandy.

But it has been highly distressing, to follow the kind of developments in the Jeffrey Epstein case recently, which has really been showing, you know, so many, wealthy, powerful men either

actively involved in or kind of complicit in the systemic sexual abuse of girls and women.

And also how a kind of great deal of the media coverage about this has focused primarily on the ramifications of this for the kind of these high profile men, you know, rather than telling the stories of the victim survivors.

But yeah, how are you doing, Sandy?

Well, yes, today we're gonna be talking about the prevention of men's violence against women.

So, you know, obviously this is all very relevant, as is the fact that Gisèle Pelicot has just given a powerful interview to the BBC.

About the sickening crimes she was subjected to over many years by her husband and, at least 50 men.

I actually, I think it's probably 70 or 80, but you know, about 30 of them haven't been found.

Her book, A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides has just been published in the UK and the interview is on BBC Iplayer.

And in conjunction with this, I also went recently to see feminist philosopher Manon Garcia, talking about her important book Living with Men, which analyses the trial and the entrenchment of rape culture in France and I think elsewhere.

And asks what is to be done in the, in these dark times.

So, so this is definitely something we should discuss further in future episodes, I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

but for today, our guest is Landon Kenny.

So Landon is coming to us from Ontario in Canada, where he works as the Male Allies programme coordinator for the Sexual Assault Support Centre of the Waterloo Region, which we may refer to as SASC at times, for ease during the podcast.

So yeah, welcome to Now and Men Landon.

You are the first Canadian we've ever had on the show.

It's very exciting to be here.

I'm very grateful.

Thank you for having me.

I didn't, I didn't know I was pioneering new ground, but it is, exciting.

We're representing a true kind of commonwealth experience between the three of us.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So perhaps to start off with, could you just tell us a little bit about the kind of Male Allies programme that you run?

So, you know, what are some of the different types of work that this involves?

What does the content of your workshops look like?

Yeah, of course.

So we offer a pretty wide variety of programming because we try to programme to many different kinds of ages.

Mm-hmm.

So when I first joined, the agency, I helped to develop programming around, you know, conversations of consent, you know, anatomy, boundaries, things like that for, children six to eight years old, grades like one through three.

That kind of.

Those focuses are a large makeup of the work that we do.

It is a lot of conversations around consent.

As we get to, you know, older groups, we start integrating more conversations around, you know, sexual violence prevention kind of more explicitly, but lots of conversations around authentic consent, healthier relationships.

And then my programme as kind of part of that public education team that I'm on, the Male Allies programme specifically looks at engaging men in a variety of different spaces and ages, in conversations around

masculinity, alternatives to kind of the standard patriarchal masculinity and messaging that they have.

Received their entire lives.

and a, large focus on, allyship, on how to use the kinds of, you know, privileges and roles that society has bestowed upon us as men in order to help create safer, healthier communities.

the organization's goal is, you know, always to support and listen to survivors of sexual and gender based violence.

We continue that mission not only through the listening of, to all survivors, but also in engaging men in those conversations, on, what they can do for survivors in their lives and kind of as a whole.

That's great.

I guess it's perhaps a bit unusual for, community-based sexual violence support centres, which of course originated from within the women's movement to have a dedicated programme engaging men and boys in, preventing gender-based violence.

So, yeah.

Could you tell us a bit about how, this, the work you are doing came about in the first place?

I would love to, yeah.

you're, because you're definitely correct.

A lot of, you know, work like mine, A lot of, Yeah, like kind of rape crisis centres, things of that nature, very much came about as a result of, you know, that large kind of second wave movement of feminism.

SASC, my organisation itself started not as like an office for counselling or anything, but as a crisis phone line.

so it started, you know, strictly as a 24 hour phone line that was funded in the region so that survivors could call and, have someone to talk to.

And from there, the kind of demand for more, support for more, you know, resources, it kind of kept growing as they saw what it was capable of doing for people in the community.

and that continued to expand until it also reached, you know, the idea of, we need to be doing more to prevent.

This kind of stuff.

Like it's one thing to offer a supportive, you know, network and like of care and, support for survivors, but if we want to move towards a community where we are, you

know, eradicating sexual violence as an end goal, we need to be doing education work.

and when looking at that, and, kind of expanding that work, a lot of the kind of preventative education work when it came to sexual violence was speaking to women and girls on like what they could do to not be harmed.

and as many people have rightfully pointed out, that is.

Not necessarily a fair approach to these kinds of conversations.

If you want to have those conversations, you need to be talking to people who are capable of, you know, preventing the harm before it starts, and also talking to the people who are statistically probably most likely to cause that harm.

So the programme came about in 2008.

It was originally called the Mark Project, the Men Against Rape Coalition.

it quickly changed to become the, Male Allies Project, and continued to kind of expand with different community support, into kind of what it is now through grants,

through a lot of, you know, community engagement in the programmes that we were doing.

but yeah, the goal of it initially was really to kind of engage men in conversations and education around, you know, the nature of sexual and gender based violence men's roles in preventing that.

And that still is very much a focus of the programme, but it has now expanded as we have, you know, learned more as we have, Gained more access to, you know, resources increased kind of, and bettered our pedagogical approach.

it also now looks at creating spaces for men to kind of have conversations in general around, you know, our role within feminism, our role as allies, our role in challenging

the kind of masculinity notions that, that kind of keep getting passed down onto us.

because as many, of the men that I've spoke to have realised that it's, you know, something that they want to do, but it's very difficult to learn how to start.

Mm-hmm.

And so that was kind of where our programme has grown into, while keeping that core tenant of trying to challenge, you know, sexual and gender based violence.

Right.

and what was your own sort of route into this work?

Because it's not the, you know, the most natural thing for men to go into really, is it?

And

Absolutely

no.

What was it that led you to sort of first question expectations about masculinity?

I. It's always kind of funny to answer this question, because, you know, I always wish that it was like some large noble.

Calling.

I mean, it definitely probably started, the roots took place just based on, you know, a lot of the women in my life as I was growing up and the role that they had in raising

and shaping me and, you know, teaching me to engage with my own feelings and everything.

I first, you know, came across the, notion of feminism when I was in high school, through Tumblr.

it was definitely kind of my first foray into that idea.

My, you know, then girlfriend at the time, had kind of introduced me to the website and, as I grew, to engage with it more and I learned more about, I mean back then it was, you know, they were all just labelled social justice warriors.

Now it's woke, the terminology changes so rapidly.

but you know, people on there who.

Well, I was starting to realise like a lot of the messaging I was receiving at school from other kind of social media sites at the time about, you know, how these people act and everything.

I was like, this doesn't seem right at all.

Right?

So much of the messaging that, was on like YouTube at the time or anything was about, you know, feminists getting owned and things like that.

And it was always portraying them as insane and over the top and hating men.

And as I grew more into the movement, as I started, you know, associating with feminism, calling myself a feminist, I started to realise like I, that's just not true.

Like almost every feminist I have ever engaged with is so, you know, grateful and happy to see men who are willingly taking up that work.

And every time, you know, I meet new people and I. Continue to enter, you know, and, be in these spaces and try to uplift, you know, other voices.

many people are, so happy to have, you know, allies with whom they can, commiserate, celebrate, build community with.

and then when I entered university, the role of, you know, going into this space, being, a student leader through like positions at the university and everything like that, and then also being

like a very loud male feminist kind of led me to naturally being a sort of male allyship educator.

I, you know, my role in a lot of those spaces was going to be talking to the other men in this space about how they can show up for, you know, the women in their lives talking

to the men in, that space about how, you know, some of the jokes, that they were maybe engaging in are harmful and things like that while trying to keep it, you know, very neutral.

and then from there I got, a part-time, or it was a full-time, but like student summer job at the University's Sexual Violence Prevention Office.

And, you know, coupled with my background in education, which is what I went to university for, when I had moved to the Waterloo region, and saw that this was, you know, not only a centre that was doing great work, that

aligned with what I knew, but also that there was a role specifically, meant to engage men in those conversations.

It was, you know, a very natural fit.

And I guess, you know, women were happy to see you doing the work, but at the same time, there's the issue of accountability that has to come up, there as well.

So, yeah.

You know, ensuring that we're, genuinely supporting gender equality, not taking over, for example, and I, guess being rooted in the, the support centre helps you with this accountability issue.

And what kind of steps do you take to, to ensure that, you are being accountable to women or the work that you are doing is accountable to women in the women's movement.

Yeah, absolutely.

So first of all, great question.

and it's one that I always, you know, if not consciously am always trying to implement when I'm creating programmes, when I am, you know, reaching out to or being, you know, brought into spaces.

as programme, you know, I think it is important to recognise that historically, men's spaces and even progressive or feminist men's spaces, if left unchecked very often slide back

into a lot of kind of, you know, reinforcement of, patriarchal ideas and communications.

there's a, you know, there's been studies of this kind of historically where we see it happen.

We see it happen a lot in online spaces where, you know, they will create a space that is, Posited as being, you know, a male positivity space.

One where, you know, men can go to, to talk about their problems and receive the support, and things like that.

and talk about that.

I don't ever posit the male allies training or the programmes that I'm running as, you know, male positivity spaces.

These are male allyship spaces.

The goal, the fundamental goal at the end of each of these, you know, sessions at the end of this learning is how can we be, you know, better educated, better prepared to take up allyship in our day-to-day lives?

it can require a little bit of, you know.

Moderation, not necessarily in like trying to shut down people who come in with contradictory experiences or, you know, thoughts because those are a dime a dozen.

It's, very common to have those kinds of thoughts and especially with, you know, the rhetoric that is currently being pushed for a lot of men.

but instead making sure that in that space, a lot of the more kind of insidious notions of like men's spaces get challenged and checked.

So the idea of, you know, trying to, a lot of times when we're talking about, you know, men's issues or, you know, we're taking that kind of, bell Hooks approach of, you know, recognising this is how patriarchy harms men.

There is a lot of kind of, insidious approaches of, recognising, well, you know, it's also because, you know, women online say, I hate men.

It's because, you know, when young boys go to school, they hear all of these programmes and empowerment for women, but nothing about, you know, men and boys and everything.

And it's always a difficult conversation, but one that needs to be curbed, right?

The point of these spaces is not to reinvent a way for, to blame women for the struggles that men are having, right?

It is very often about that accountability is often about recentralizing and recognising we're looking at a, thing of systems here we're, challenging, you know, a patriarchal

notions that are bigger than the individual and the individual contributes to that.

But, we really need to kind of keep our, eye on the prize here.

We need to bring it back to that.

and so, you know, not letting those, kind of harmful.

Quips and, comments go unchecked because they seem harmless at first.

They seem to be well-intentioned, but similar to, you know, how many men bring up, you know, male survivors of sexual violence only as often as a tool to distract from, or silence conversations

about, you know, violence that women and, girls face on a day-to-day basis, or queer individuals.

you know, it's, important to challenge a lot of those kinds of rhetoric around like, the reason men are, unhappy or things like that are because of the gains that other groups have gotten.

and really trying to kind of bring it back to recognising no right.

That the systems that are harming us, just like when we talk intersectionality and how people's oppressions are interlinked, the systems that are harming us are harming them as well, And we

aren't getting anywhere by blaming, individuals or, you know, pushing men's issues on onto women.

and then on the level of the individual, it is, you know, a lot about challenging the notion of like.

men's space and feminism.

As you know, I'm always encouraging people to learn and to read and, to do all of those things, but, you know, as a, as an individual, within those spaces, you know, being accountable isn't being up to date on theory.

It's not knowing all of the buzzwords that you need to, say in order to like perfectly succinctly argue with somebody on the internet.

there's a, poster that hangs up in the kitchen in my office space in the city.

it's right above the sink and it says, real feminists do their dishes.

and I think, you know, that is something that very much embodies that kind of individual approach that I always try and talk to people about with like, accountability to feminism and the feminist

movement and to the women and girls in our lives is about, you know, recognising you can.

You can do all of the theory, you can do all of the learning, you can engage in those spaces.

But if you are, not checking your own personal behaviours, if you're not checking the ways in which you engage with the women and girls in your life, if you are perpetuating these

kinds of, you know, patriarchal notions of leaving the dishes for other people of, you know, not cleaning up after yourself and, things like that, then the theory doesn't get anywhere.

Right.

The action, is, necessary on that kind of individual level to ensure that, we're not perpetuating that harm even if we think ideologically that we're past it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You maybe think of, a conversation we had with Cynthia Enloe, you know, who writes about militarism and foreign policy.

Right.

We did a great interview with her, but I remember her saying, you know, that there's a process to, this one's always becoming a feminist, you know?

Right.

And, it's, it is kind of a lifelong, process and duty.

So, yeah, I always remember that and think that's quite an important way of putting it, really.

Mm-hmm.

I like that a lot.

Well, and you mentioned Landon as well, about the kind of, the pushback that, against violence prevention work with men and boys that we're witnessing at the moment.

Although I think it was a good point you raised as well, that I guess the backlash isn't anything new, is it?

There's always been a backlash against feminism.

unfortunately,

yes.

But clearly, this work can be a really kind of positive and beneficial experience for men and boys.

Oh, absolutely.

As well as, of course, for the wider community.

so do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Like what kind of impacts have you seen this work having on the men and boys that you are engaging with?

Like, have any particular responses from them stuck with you?

yeah.

There's, you know, there's a few that always stick with me.

Like, so oftentimes I find, a lot of buy-in and a lot of, you know, really altered.

ideas around relationships and sex when I get to like, have genuine and like in depth conversations on, consent with people, right?

So like I, you know, I do appreciate and always love my opportunities to go in and talk to, you know, classrooms and stuff and, teach them consent and everything like that.

But there's only so much nuance you can provide to, you know, a grade seven classroom that has, you know, 25 students in it.

And I'm talking to them for 50 minutes.

But, you know, when I really get into it, there's a couple moments that stand out to me.

So, like, one, was a conversation that I had with, afterwards with a hockey player after doing a, workshop with a team where one of the players had said that like, the way that I had phrased it had made him realise

that whenever he had learned about consent beforehand, he had never seen himself as an agent of consent.

That wasn't the exact word that, you know, wording he had used, but that was what it boiled down to.

Consent was always,

A to-do list kind of checkbox, right?

Of recognising, yes, it's important and essential to having safety and everything, but it is the thing that we do to make sure that we're good to have sex.

Things like that.

Whereas, you know, after the session, it made him realise like that he had been.

Just kind of assuming in almost every case, that he had been a consenting, you know, an agent of consent that he hadn't, you know, never really thought of it before, but that there were times where

he was like, you know, I don't know if I was super comfortable with that, but a lot of the pressure and a lot of the messaging that I'd received was that, like, I kind of always had to be down for it.

so things like that, things, in a moment after a session with a, man who had come back to me afterwards and said that, like, after the session on like consent and relationships that we had done in a training.

together, he had, you know, reached back out to me and he said that after that him and his wife had a conversation for an hour and a half to almost two hours that night, and

the session ended at 9:00 PM So their conversation kind of went late into the night.

you know, and that it changed things Like he suddenly, he, realised, you know, ways in which he had been.

You know, an adequate partner, but also a lot of ways that he could continue to show up and make things safer for her, within their relationship.

Not in like a protective sense, but in a sense of like acknowledging, you know, how we could engage on things together, in a much more equitable way.

and yeah, a lot of the feedback that really sticks with me is the people who come back, or who, you know, see me out in community and they come up and they say, like,

that talk that you gave changed the way that I did relationships from there on.

Like, it helped me recognise the things that I valued.

It helped me recognise, you know, more of, who I was, and the role that I could play in not only my own life, but in the lives of, everyone that I have relationships with.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I think it's really powerful, isn't it, to kinda spin it around.

It's because we, I feel like consent is so often framed as being about something men get.

You know, when it's say, well actually we should all be consenting and are you always actually up for sex because you're probably not, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like, even though obviously that's the story we're told that men are or should always be up for sex, but,

yeah, absolutely.

But anyway, so while we're, while I mentioned backlash before, I guess it's impossible not to mention, your neighbours in the United States, with everything that's been going on there at the moment.

so yeah, I mean, in what ways has the kind of Trump presidency, would you say?

Yeah.

how has that impacted on, on Canadian society?

Obviously it's a very kind of masculinist militaristic, authoritarian regime over there, so Yeah.

Has that, how has that been impacting on Canada?

I mean, it's been interesting, for example, following the kind of Mark Carney, and his, prime ministership.

Would you say he's modelling a different kind of masculinity?

yeah.

What are your thoughts?

I would.

I would definitely say so.

So, a couple thoughts on that One.

Something I wanted to bring up, even beforehand, I don't, this is a fun little bit of, Canadian trivia for you, but for many years under the Justin Trudeau Prime ministership, a lot of, you know, kind of more conservative leaning

individuals, made their political beliefs clear with a bunch of, you know, stickers and, for cars flags in their lawns.

that very politely said F Trudeau, maybe more explicitly, they were everywhere.

You really couldn't travel through, you know, any kind of populous space without seeing them.

and very quickly after Justin Trudeau stepped down and Mark Carney was affirmed and then, you know, reelected as, Prime Minister, They, the flag businesses kept it up and now there's a, plenty

of, F Carney flags everywhere, but many of them seem to object to his relationship to the uk.

there's always a union jack somewhere on those stickers and flags that are, anti Carney.

So I thought that was a very interesting, because he was the,

he was the head of the Bank of England, wasn't he?

Exactly.

For a long time.

Yeah.

so a very kind of interesting little relationship there.

so I mean, it is, As in many places, impossible to not, you know, kind of see the effects that the, Trump presidencies have had culturally in, in many ways.

it shifted the narrative in the playbook, I think for a lot of other kind of global right-wing movements and parties.

and, you know, you, open the episode, episode talking about Epstein.

and the more we learn about that, the more we learn that there was, you know, a lot going on behind the scenes of kind of collaborations there of making these kinds of plans.

You know, bear fruit.

Canada has been very directly affected by that, given the policy, kind of side of things.

You know, our right wing party has, the Conservative Party has shifted very hard, I think, to, kind of that more populist play style.

it has, you know, affected, you know, a lot of the rhetoric in, our, kind of day-to-day spaces, the way we go about these things.

all very kind of similar to how it was pre-Trump, but, with much more, you know, vitriol now, a lot of hatred, for the kind of populations that they scapegoat, trans individuals, immigrants, things like that.

and we've seen how it affects, you know, the political parties.

So, for example, in Canada we have something, within our Charter of Rights and freedoms called the Notwithstanding Clause.

I'm unsure if you're familiar with it.

It is a, it's a section that basically says that, at times, usually times of great distress and things like that, provincial and the federal government can invoke, you know, and

pass legislation, notwithstanding other sections of the charters of rights and freedoms.

Notably, you know, many of our rights and freedoms, things like, you know, the right to not be discriminated against, the right to organise, things like that.

it was, you know, put in there as a, in order to get some provinces on board when the charter was being created.

and historically has only really been used by Quebec, usually in protest.

But recently in the last, since around 2018, many provincial, conservative premiers have just been implementing it, in ways of very, kind of akin to Trump's, you know, attempts of just being like, the rules don't apply, right?

Decorum is out the window.

We can do what we want.

and so there have been, you know, in Alberta, Canada, just, last year, perhaps 2024, you know, they, their mp and Premier had implemented that rule and basically said, we're, you know, we're making it harder for kids to be trans.

We're making it less safe for kids to be trans in schools, and we're doing it with the notwithstanding clause.

So the courts can't challenge this as like, discriminatory.

and it has, you know, it has been this kind of, This big thing that we just keep see happening.

They keep doing it in order to force employees back to work teachers and things like that.

They keep invoking this clause in order to basically be like, we don't, you know, we're not here for legal challenges.

we're just doing what we want to, which has been scary.

It has been, you know, difficult to see Kearney has been welcomed, I think, overall in Canada, I think with, pretty open arms, Justin Trudeau came with a lot of baggage, that, you know, a lot of people weren't really willing to challenge.

He, hadn't won many people over.

I think Mark Carney has, but I think, you know, when you talk of it in that lens of masculinity.

I think Kearney represents more of a, soft patriarchy as opposed to Trump's very kind of dominating one.

many of the, you know, criticisms of, Carney's policies and everything like that from progressive spaces, you know, hold for, you know, criticisms of much of our liberal party, similar to your Labour party, things like that.

where, you know, it is just a lot of that kind of same neoliberalism.

It's trying to repackage a status quo, but in a, very presentable way.

And I think on the world stage that cells very well, Carney has been very well received internationally.

his, you know, the World Economic Forum that happened, A, a few weeks ago, as of the recording of this, you know, where he spoke and he had a speak that was very well received and then, you

know, Trump came on the next day and like insulted him for it and, said that, you know, we really want Greenland and just kind of ignoring, you know, a lot of the, premises of what was going on.

So, you know, yeah.

I think Trump represents this very, kind of very dominating patriarchy, right?

A, a kind of masculinity that exudes, that doesn't necessarily exude power, but rather is, implicit in saying like, of course we have power, right?

That's who we are and when we wouldn't accept anything else, and so we're going to use it to get our way.

Carney's, you know, patriarchy still holds on to a lot of that.

A lot of that kind of notion of power, but it doesn't do so with the kind of the language of domination.

It doesn't in a much more kind of polite way.

which I find, you know, is a common issue with, again, a lot of kind of men's groups, right?

a lot of people, a lot of, people who try to speak to, you know, men's issues will, say, here's the key to fixing modern masculinity.

And the solutions very often are just kind of rebuilding, a lot of patriarchal ideals, but in, you know, it repackaged with a, nice bow on top.

that is a problem that we kind of keep running into because I don't think it, I don't think it motivates anyone to try to challenge things if you just try to keep sticking to that status quo.

So a key area of focus for you is sport, I think, London, particularly ice hockey, you know, that we know that's hugely popular in Canada.

And you said earlier you've been, you've delivered work with Hockey Canada and the Ontario Hockey League, I think, amongst others.

Could you tell us a bit more about this work and why is sports such an important institution to engage with in, in your view?

So, I mean, I think sport is so important because for very many individuals, sport is, kind of one of the most direct ways in which they engage in their community.

you know, hockey as is.

Canadian culture.

I frequently joke about this, but you know, in the kind of last, you know, election that we had to determine, you know, prime minister of the country and everything, there was a

debate between party leaders that was rescheduled because it coincided with a hockey game.

like, it's just, it just is that big of a thing here for so many people.

And so, you know, talking to hockey players, getting in on that culture, is kind of two-pronged.

One, it gets to people where they can, you know, where they can access it.

two, the culture has some issues that we, you know, specifically want to address.

Hockey culture in particular takes a lot of very, direct influence from, some more of the kind of harmful masculine ideas.

you know, it is very much a space where violence is celebrated.

I remember growing up as a child and like.

The amount of parents that were protesting and getting like, actually upset because they raised the age two years in which fighting was allowed on the ice.

so suddenly they were like, actually 12 year olds can't fight each other on the ice anymore.

You have to be 14 to do that.

And there was like, there was, you know, they were fully willing to protest.

It was such an kind of an integral part of the sport for them.

And so it was, you know, when we continued to see a lot of kind of harm come out of these spaces for, you know, the players themselves, but then also for people who are interacting

with them, it became, you know, very apparent that this was a, space we needed to talk to.

Right.

Whether it was about consent or now more so, you know, focused on.

Untying, a lot of those notions of masculinity from, you know, self-worth and things like that.

We see these kind of big news stories pop up about the, you know, the violence that can sometimes happen in these spaces.

And for a lot of people that hits very close to home, they know players who, you know, make it to that level.

They, you know, they hung out with guys who were very much like that.

everyone, you know, when you enter a school, you find out very quickly who the hockey players are, whether it's, you know, by their dress, by the way that other people refer to them, things like that.

and because they have that kind of, cultural, you know, kinda social capital that, you know, speaking to them helps engage not only the issues apparent in that space, but

then also helps to kind of create that, ripple effect that we so often hope happens.

Regarding consent and violence prevention education, right?

I speak to this small group of people, it gets through to.

50% of them, you know, if I'm, you know, being optimistic.

But then they take it and it spreads out in their circles, and those kind of conversations keep happening.

So we look to, you know, athletics and everything like that to say, these, this is a good space to have these conversations because, you know, it challenges a lot of

direct issues with kind of masculinity as these young people are experiencing it.

And also, you know, hopefully has that kind of cultural, you know, widespread effect.

Mm-hmm.

and it's more than just sort of, you know, whether you can be violent at 12 or 14, isn't it?

It's, yes.

It's like, you know, what's talked about in the locker room, it's about the culture of silence.

It's about, you know, the kind of conversations you hear with normalised, aggression and domination.

it's that sort of stuff as well, isn't it?

Very much so.

Yeah.

So I joined this organisation, I joined Sask in the summer of 2022.

and that was the summer where the Hockey Canada trial, like kind of that news broke, particularly the news that broke at that time wasn't about, you know, the, violent, you know, harm that had occurred,

that was something that was known about a couple years prior, but then didn't necessarily go anywhere.

What was discovered in 2022 was that Hockey Canada as an organisation had been using player registration fees to help create hush funds to pay out to survivors of sexual violence that experienced violence

at the hands of their, at their players and, other people within that kind of, under their purview.

And, you know, in doing so, basically said.

If you are engaged in Hockey Canada in any way, which many, people are, right?

A lot of the fees that players have and things like that, go to Hockey Canada.

It's a massive organisation.

you know, you are in some way kind of contributing to that culture of silence.

You are contributing to the fact that not only is it expected that these players will cause this harm, but they've already taken, you know, countermeasures against word getting out to, to protect their own name.

And so that was when, you know, it was shortly after that news story broke that the, that Hockey Canada had reached out to us to say, Hey, would it be possible to get you to train, you know,

many of our players and also many of our staff, and they had done so because for the past six years at the time, we had been involved in running something called the OHL Onsite programme.

So the OHL is our Ontario Hockey League.

It is a, it's, you know, very high level hockey.

Many players, you know, are.

They're young when they're in the OHL.

So, they take players from 15 to around 22.

and many players, you know, in that space then, you know, it's probably the place to go to if you're trying to get scouted to go to the NHL kind of deal.

So this is, you know, it's very high level hockey.

These are very, you know, adept players.

And we, had made this partnership with them to run this training, for two hours with all the teams, as, as much as we could, you know, once per, hopefully once per year on basically just

trying to get out to them and talk to them about consent, about masculinity, about these kinds of things and how they see it, how they are affected by it in their roles as hockey players.

And then what they can do about, you know, the kinds of things that get brought up around them that they are just kind of subject to in association with, you know, a lot of the

harms happening in, in high level hockey, but, that had kind of paved the ground for.

Yeah.

Hockey Canada to reach out to us to kind of look at for that kind of training.

We did that in collaboration with the Calgary Sexual Assault Centre.

and, you know, since then, in 2023, we had kind of stopped directly training them.

I couldn't tell you where they are, you know, receiving that training.

Now, hopefully they still are and they still view it as a priority.

but you know, in that whole kind of debacle, it was, you know, it kinda became abundantly clear.

There's something about hockey culture that needs to change.

There's something about that kind of sports culture and how closely tied it is to a lot of notions of masculinity and things like that, is harming people.

And that we want to try to, you know, prevent.

I, I, think, I mean you haven't, I don't think you mentioned it specifically, but you're alluding also to quite a significant case, which people in Canada will know about, but others outside Canada may not remember.

So, you know, as I understand it, five members of the National Junior team were accused of sexually assaulting a woman in London, Ontario in about 2018, but they were acquitted.

And I think they've been reinstated recently into the, league, is that right?

They have, yeah.

So many of the, like, so of the five players, I know, of one who currently plays in the NHLI believe one other might have also gotten drafted, but isn't, you know, as maybe as prominent of a role.

but everyone else had been, you know, reinstated, they had been cleared that they could indeed go and continue to, you know, play, at this high level if, you know, if they so choose, if they get drafted, things like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was a, that was a difficult time.

It was, you know, it was very hard.

London is very close to our centre.

We work very closely with some of the centres that do similar work in London.

One of the centres, who of which worked very closely with the survivor.

Em.

and you know, that case was difficult.

It brought up a lot of kind of.

To us at least.

It brought up a lot of, good, you know, points around some of the issues that surround consent education as it is practised in many ways, right?

If, consent education is done and provided to people, but it is done as we, you know, talked about earlier, and kind of portrayed in this way of like, consent is something men get from

women, then that leads to situations where in, you know, deeply uncomfortable situations, you are taking video recordings of people to try to get their consent right on, on camera, right?

We always, make it very clear in our sessions, like, you know, video, consent when it, in regards to like sexual acts doesn't really matter because the whole point of consent,

if it's going to be genuine and authentic, is that you can take it back at any time.

So if I could take it back at any time during the action, what is the point of you taking that video beforehand?

And if you're taking it after hand, like afterwards, that doesn't really mean anything either, because I don't know if you know this exact detail in one of the, consent videos that was submitted

as evidence in that trial, the video begins with the player who's taking the video saying, say it.

You can hear at the beginning of the video.

Right.

That it, it comes across at least, you know, to, to me and to many of the people in this line of work as something that was, you know, very scripted as something that they were kind of forcing, themselves

to get from the survivor because in doing so, they figured it would help clear their names and it did.

Right.

But it also, I think, you know, points us in this direction of like, that's an inadequate way to get consent, but it also ignores all of the ways in which safety needs to be brought into these conversations.

Right.

Consent is this kind of very.

In, many ways can be this very kind of nuanced thing that cannot, you know, be boiled down to like, did they say yes or no?

it needs to be more than that, right.

I often will say in workshops that, like, if, your consent isn't com coupled with compassion and empathy for the person with whom you're trying to gain that consent for,

I, don't know if your, you know, your motives for getting it are, perfectly clear, so.

Mm-hmm.

It's really,

you know, it was a, difficult trial.

Yeah.

I was reading about the trial and, yeah, really shocking.

Really, how it seemed like the victim survivor was the one basically on trial and not the men, by the judge.

Like really shocking comments.

Yes.

Cross examined five times.

Yeah.

Just all, and unfortunately it's very relatable for many different countries as well, isn't it?

I think Ireland, the UK, like we've seen many cases like this in recent years, which is, awful.

but yeah.

on a more positive note, something we couldn't help but ask you about, especially 'cause we're talking about ice hockey.

Was the recent Canadian TV series Heated Rivalry?

yes.

So if people aren't familiar with it, it tells the fictional story of two kind of superstar hockey players.

Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, who maintain a kind of secret, kind of long-term romantic relationship while paying for rival teams.

And the show's become incredibly popular worldwide.

I've seen it, I dunno if you've seen it, Sandy.

I'm, a huge fan of it myself.

and it's been praised among other things for, its kind of opening up of kind of rigid, restrictive masculine norms.

Mm-hmm.

Like its display of kind, love and intimacy among men, its fearlessness in depicting kind of queer sexuality on screen.

Mm-hmm.

So have you seen it land?

And if so, what did you make of it?

What did you make of its kind of portrayal of masculinity?

Yeah, so, I have not seen it all.

Oh gosh.

I've, recently I finished, I've finished episode four.

I love it.

I think it's a great show.

and I've learned from many of my colleagues and friends that by not having, you know, seen episodes five and six, I'm doing myself a great

disservice.

So I'm excited to continue to, I'm excited to continue that.

but you know, from, everything that I've heard, it has been.

Everywhere here.

it has been, you know, it is one of those things where there was a point where I was like, do I need to watch it?

Because I feel like I've picked up pretty much everything.

I've seen, you know, many different shots on, on, you know, videos on reels and tiktoks and things like that.

I've seen it analysed to death.

It is a phenomenal show.

I'm very grateful for it because I do think it does, I do think it does a great service to kind of conversations around masculinity, particularly within spaces where, you know, masculinity is so rigidly defined, like in kind of hockey.

and it does it in a way that, you know, I think really speaks to, many people, right?

It has a very universal appeal, a much more universal appeal than, you know, a show about, you know, two kind of closeted queer hockey lovers.

You know, one might think that a show like that would have, I think you, kind of hit the, nail on the head there, Steven, in recognising it.

It approaches masculinity in this very kind of, in a way that makes it feel safe.

All of the masculinity that is going on in the show is, never weaponized at, you know, necessarily one another.

particularly within, you know, the kind of close and, intimate relationships that are built between men in the show.

I do think there is, you know, a really interesting conversation to be had there about, the role of masculinity within these two kinds of players' lives, like these are men, you know, Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov.

These are men who for all intents and purposes are on top of the world when it comes to like being a man's man, right?

They are professional hockey players.

Not only are they professional hockey players, they are star hockey players.

You know, they are, you know, they're rookies of the year.

They are MVP winners.

They are, one of them is essentially a, you know, a Stanley Cup winner, things like that.

and, you know, so much of it, the pressures and everything kind of.

You know, get built onto them.

if you view them just as like, through the lens of like, you know, men get rewarded for performing masculinity, you would think then that these men have everything and the show does a very good job of explaining how, you

know, I think it's their relationships and things like that are a great portrayal of what masculinity could be.

It is this feeling of, you know, safeness.

It is that kind of connection.

It, you know, it can be all of those things while also doing a great job of portraying how patriarchy and masculinity harms and limits men in real life.

you know, one of the, main characters, Ilya Rozanov, he is again, you know, he's buff, he's muscular, he's, you know, a professional athlete.

He's hot and he's desirable and he's all of these things and he's dominant, like we're told men should be.

and every interaction we have of him with his father is him.

Scared.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

His father is this, you know, very high, kind of like ranking, you know, Russian official, who no matter what success he achieves, it is never good enough, no matter what.

Right.

It kind of is a great portrayal of the ways in which, you know, patriarchal masculinity and the kind of the man box notion sets us up for failure.

It's never enough.

You have to constantly keep striving for more because the second you, stop striving for more, that's when you start to fall short of, the expectations that the culture has for you.

and so, you know, despite displaying masculinity in this very kind of, you know, tender and loving way, which I think for many people is such a great appeal of the show

where they get to see, you know, this is what the men in my life could be capable of.

They could be, you know, they can and should be capable of this tenderness, of this communication, of this kind of love.

Very often they aren't.

And the reasons why are those kinds of, you know, social limits that are, put on them in regards to, you know, the way that, again, to, reference bell hooks again, how she refers to the

first victim of patriarchy's, you know, men's self-mutilation, like emotional self-mutilation.

and, how we see that here, right?

And how it takes a very long time for these men to open up to each other, right?

It, the relationship builds over the course of like six or eight years.

and in that entire time for, quite a while, it's purely sexual.

And it is only after, you know, a little bit when they finally will give way to the, you know, the fact that I do have feelings for this person.

That is when, you know, those things can really get analysed.

Mm-hmm.

yeah.

There's a really, there's some really great analyses of this.

I saw one really great video by.

a TikTok user by the name of hannabella, where she talked about like, why she was so obsessed with this show and how, you know, it portrayed romance on an even playing field without the impact

of gender, and the kind of patriarchal expectations of who would be the, desire and who would be the desired, who is, you know, the operator of desire and who is the object and subject of it.

So, you know, there was a really, there's so many great kind of analysis to, to come out of it, but I think it has done, you know, a, wonderful job in breaking down some of those expectations of, what men can and should be.

Yeah, it's, that's, I feel like we could have a whole episode just discussing it.

Probably.

It's, wonderful.

I mean, one thing I do think is very clever is like by focusing on ice hockey and as you said, with characters who are mm-hmm.

Very hegemonically masculine, maybe it offers a route in for men to pay an interest in it when, as you said, men might not usually watch maybe a romantic.

Especially a queer romance TV show.

and actually there is a piece which has been written by Professor Steven Roberts, who we interviewed recently on the podcast.

And he talks about how in Australia, actually the show has been watched and loved by many young men as well as, you know, young women and queer people.

I mean, do you think that's something which has been happening in Canada?

You know, what would you say the show has?

Had an impact in that positive way on Canadian society at all?

I, think so.

I think so.

So one, one thing I will say, I think it has done wonders for much of our faith in Canadian television.

that has always for, many young Canadian individuals, been a, sore spot.

And so it has been nice to see, you know, a real glowing example of it come out to this kind of universal acclaim.

But, you know, additionally, I think, yeah, it has been perceived with very open arms.

in fact, like, so the.

the creator of the show, Jacob Tierney, is also involved in a couple of other shows that are very much, very well received, kind of Canadian classics in a sense.

There's two of them.

They're Letterkenny and Shoresy.

they also both kind of focus on, you know, there's, ice hockey is very prominent in Shoresy, less so, and Letterkenny.

Both of them are very kind of Canadian, but both of them I think have very interesting things to say about masculinity and the ways in which these characters kind of, you know, show up.

but yeah, it has been, extraordinarily well received.

I will say most of my work and peer group has been women, and, I have received, you know, an overwhelming response from them in regards to the show and, how much they love and adore it.

But in the, cases where I have been speaking to men about it, who have seen it, it's very, you know, a very similar story.

The show is being kind of received.

I think.

A, because it is not necessarily so universal.

This is not an experience that many people are going to be particularly familiar with.

But the ways in which, you know, the challenges of these people who seem to be, who seem like they should be untouchable, right?

particularly for a lot of young men, where they see, you know, this whole thing of, you know.

Messaging around masculinity is, you have to be tough and you can't have problems.

And all of these things just need to be ignored.

And, you know, all of these kinds of very consistent messages that we've received, it shows, you know, suddenly all of these people who are checking all of the boxes and still struggle, right?

The struggle isn't necessarily to do with their, you know, inherent masculinity or their self-worth.

It is instead about the boundaries that we put on men in the ways in which they are able to show and receive love.

And, in doing so, I think, you know, a lot of the men that I have talked to and engaged with, you know, see that as hopeful.

They see it as a way to kind of think moving forward of the ways in which, These things can be communicated, these things can be achieved and that they can be done in a way that doesn't have

to do with the kind of power dynamics that romance so often demands of like its lead subjects.

Mm-hmm.

it can be done instead in a way that is equitable.

It can be done instead in a way that, you know, can, work collaboratively.

Only once you get past the barriers of the expectations of a culture that tells you that you don't deserve it.

So, I mean, I think as of yet, no active NHL players have ever come out as gay, which is also the same in, soccer in the UK for example, or Australian football mm-hmm.

Here in Australia.

So you might hopefully, you know, one day soon, some, you know, men might feel able to actually do that.

Yes.

And yeah,

We, did an event, through my work just a couple of years ago actually speaking with Brock McGillis, who was a former NHL player who has since come out.

but he spoke.

You know, to a very similar situation.

It was impossible.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

For him at that time, it just wasn't even, he, you know, when he spoke at that event, he spoke even afterwards when he had like left that kind of limelight when he was coaching hockey, when he was doing, you know, things like that.

It wasn't easy.

you know, he tells this anecdote of, you know, a lot of the young boys coming in that he's, you know, speaking to and training and everything and being, you know, open about the fact that, you know, they know that he's gay

and him, like the panic that overtakes him in that space of like, they're, that's not supposed to be known here.

And then the relief that comes from a lot of these young players being like, it's, you know, so cool that you're here.

Thanks for doing what you do, you know, after all of that.

But it is, you know, it is still very pervasive.

Unfortunately.

It is a very kind of hegemonic space, that is, yeah, causes, causes a lot of harm.

Well, full disclosure, I haven't actually seen this show yet, but listening to you two, I clearly have to, but

And one thing I will say about it, just as a heads up, Sandy, it that is indeed, you know, hockey players do indeed have butts.

Like that is really, yeah.

Well, the only two pennyworth I was gonna throw in was that, there was that film, US film Brokeback Mountain, wasn't there?

Mm-hmm.

Which was about two, two cowboys in a loving relationship.

So maybe each country has to find its own way of presenting, you know, what's going on with masculinity.

Yeah.

Huh.

Culturally, culturally specific.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll have to have a show in the UK about rugby players or cricketers or something like that.

You know,

in, a sense, I think for a lot of young folks, Heartstopper fills that, space.

Well in, in a way.

I can't say how well it has been received, you know, universally.

I think a lot of people may be, Criticise it for being, you know, too woke and inclusive and, you know, bringing in, you know, all of these, you know, other people.

I think I, from what I have seen, I thought I did a, you know, a great job of portraying a lot of those things, particularly amongst a young, you know, rugby player, who is,

you know, struggling with these things and the kind of cultural, pressures of that.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I think we're probably coming to a, conclusion now, but, I mean, how do you feel about the future of the work that you do in, Canada?

Are you, do you feel optimistic about the way you are going?

I do.

I do.

I think that, you know,

I would feel bad.

I think for anybody who's trying to do this work and is trying to do this activism, who doesn't feel hopeful.

I think it's, I think it's almost, a demand of the kind of, doing this work that you can, you know, at times it doesn't feel great.

there are many setbacks.

There are many challenges.

We will experience.

But I do feel hopeful, right?

I do.

when I go in and I speak to, you know, groups of young men, and I see how eager they are to have these conversations because they realise they might not get a space like this again.

They might not have a chance to ask these questions, at least not in a space where they can kind of trust the answers that they're given.

Or, you know, they can't take these questions to the internet because who knows, you know, where that might lead them.

You know, questions about dating, questions about sex, questions about all these things.

They are eager to have these conversations.

And when you, respond to that with earnestness and when you respond to it and you say, these are good questions, it's totally fair that you have them.

The, relief that these, you know, young men feel, the fact that they feel like, you know, not alone in the world, but rather the fact that they feel like they can be heard and that they can share things, and that the.

Lo and behold it didn't hurt them.

Right?

We, set up expectations of a judgment-free space and they find, hey, I can share these things and not be judged.

I can extend that to the other men in my lives as well.

it, you can't help but feel hopeful.

Yeah.

Well, it is great to be able to, end a conversation about such, you know, difficult subjects on a, hopeful note.

So thanks so much for your time and, you know, for talking to us.

Thank you.

This has been a pleasure.

Yeah.

It's been such a pleasure to meet you and to talk with you and hear about the great work you're doing and which gives us hope, I suppose, to know about, you know, the amazing work going on around the world.

So, yeah.

Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so nice to know, you know, how united we, we can be in that front.

Totally.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, Sandy, as we discussed in our last episode, in the spirit of the podcast becoming a bit more kind of advocacy oriented, I wanted to start off this conclusion just by, mentioning that the End Violence

Against Women Coalition in the UK have, recently produced a messaging guide, to help people talk about the ways in which violence against women is being kind of weaponised for kind of racist anti-immigration, agendas.

And to help us all play a part in kinda shifting the narrative away from kind of scapegoating migrants, for issues like violence against women, which are of course,

actually, you know, problems across the whole of society as our discussion illustrated.

but yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes in case that's of interest to people.

but what did you, Sandy make of the conversation we had today?

Yeah, it was fascinating to hear all about Canada, actually.

Mm-hmm.

Because, you know, we have a sort of.

Headline impression of how Canada is.

but there's clearly a lot more, you know, going on, below the, sort of, below the surface.

I found that really fascinating and I have been to Canada once, but, I don't know well enough really.

And, you know, certainly what Landon was saying was, just very interesting on that level.

but I, wanted to pick up actually on the, notion of consent that he mentioned, several times.

and I was thinking whilst he was talking about, the talk that I went to by Manon Garcia, she was saying that, you know, there's a difference between consent and good sex, really.

Mm-hmm.

And that, you know, consent is often on the basis of person A, the man, almost always.

Yeah.

Doing something to person B, the woman, you know.

And, she was saying that really we should move from a consent.

Model to a consensus based model where sex is entered into, you know, jointly.

it's, it's a conversation.

You know, it's joyous, and so on.

I mean, I, dunno quite what that looks like on the, ground, you know, for people doing the work like Landon is.

But I think it's quite interesting to, to interrogate that word, consent.

Yeah, totally.

And what it actually means in practise.

And it's obviously more than, you know, holding your phone Yeah.

And saying, you know, say it.

Yeah.

You know, that's, completely not consent.

Exactly.

So anyway, I was interested by that.

And I think there's quite a in-depth conversation one can have about consent and what it actually means.

Yeah.

'cause it's a, it's quite a legalistic transactional term, isn't it?

Which doesn't Yeah.

Really apply very well to human relationships.

'cause I guess, yeah, sex really is about ongoing open communication and being intimate and being vulnerable with somebody, isn't it?

And and that means being able to listen.

yeah.

Not just verbally, to what somebody's saying, but also how their body's communicating and things like that.

And I guess these kinds of skills aren't, they're not necessarily things that we are actually teaching boys and men from a young age.

Are they really that kind of communication and being vulnerable, as we've discussed on many of our episodes.

I'd also just, another thing I wanted to mention as well, 'cause I, I mean, I could talk about heated rivalry all day.

I, can highly recommend it to anybody and I personally, I loved it.

But one, one issue I did have with it, if I was being critical, was, just thinking about our previous episode with Brendan Gough, you know, the pressure on men to be lean, to be muscular and so on, pressures on body image.

And I do think the show might perpetuate that because pretty much all of the main characters, obviously they are ice hockey players, but you know, they have these incredibly, you know, muscular, impressive physiques.

And I just wonder, you know, what kind of pressure.

Is media like that putting on, you know, young men to feel like they have to have those kind of bodies, that might not be so healthy.

But otherwise I did think the show was excellent.

yeah.

Yeah.

I think I've got the point, Stephen, but it does actually raise the question about what are the, what about those boys and men who are not into hockey?

Well, absolutely.

Yeah,

yeah.

Totally.

Of, of which there must be some at least.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what, what's being offered to them?

Yeah.

and how is masculinity for them?

And it, you know, it reminds me of, the debates in the UK about the dominance of football.

Absolutely.

You know, that to be recognised as a boy, young man.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you gotta be good at football, you've gotta be interested in football.

And if you're not, you're somehow.

You know, apart your, you are lesser.

Yeah.

I imagine there's this a similar sort of debate, you know?

and, experience in Canada for some,

yeah.

So,

well, again, thinking back to the episode with Brendan, clearly our conversation with Landon shows that sport can be a really, important area to be doing violence prevention work, but

it shows we need this work across society because clearly that's only gonna reach some men and boys.

And then there's lots of other spaces where we need to be engaging with them as well.

Yep.

Yeah.

Were you thinking as well, about that truckers protest in Canada?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, we did.

We did.

Touch on that briefly, but not in the, podcast.

And you know, I think this was going back to about 20, was it 2022?

Yeah.

And there was a sort of whole freedom convoy, you know, and this was, a group of truckers who, who didn't want to, be vaccinated, against COVID, but beyond the issue.

there's the whole thing about the, masculinity of truckers really.

Yeah.

You know, they're up there in their cabs, they're dominating the other traffic, the other drivers, you know, they're, they're independent, they're on the road, you know?

Yeah,

they're living this sort of free lifestyle.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe with Tachometers it's not as free as it used to be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, you know, there is, something about that sort of, masculinity as well.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, and just that idea of freedom, right?

You see it popping up again and again in different kinds of, I suppose, quite right wing political movements, don't you?

And I think it is actually, it's quite a masculinised.

Notion of freedom, isn't it?

Being able to do whatever you want, unconstrained, and having the power over the world, I suppose, to have that freedom.

yeah, it's quite interesting.

But I guess we should probably draw things to a close, again, shouldn't we, Sandy, for this episode?

but yeah, thank you so much everybody for listening as always to the podcast.

please do leave a review, if that's, something you haven't already done, on the podcast platform that you may listen to us on as it helps to, bring attention to the podcast.

And, yeah, we'll be back with another episode soon.

Contact us at nowandmen@gmail.com if you have questions or comments and take care.

Yeah, and I've clearly gotta go and watch Heated Rivalry.

You should.

So, I'll go do that.

Yes.

Enjoy.

I'm sure you

will.