Washington University in St. Louis Bringing Back Program to Fight ‘Toxic Masculinity’

Students at Washington University in St. Louis are working to revive an abandoned program that was designed to fight against “toxic masculinity” in male students on campus.

According to a report by The College Fix, a group of students at Washington University in St. Louis is working to revive an old program that was designed to help male students shed their “toxic masculinity.” The program, the Men’s Project, encourages men to soften the characteristics that make them men, such as strength and courage.

Last year, Washington University in St. Louis’s website published a story about senior Sean Dunnsue, the student that has been working to reawaken the conversation on his campus about toxic masculinity. Dunnsue, an athlete, claims that his experience in the locker room with other athletes got him interested in the concept of “toxic masculinity.”

“There could be an almost primal vibe — who could be the loudest, who could be the toughest,” Dunnsue said in a short interview. “It made me feel like a misfit because I was unwilling to assert my masculinity in the ways that everyone expected.”

“It forced me to look around and say, ‘Statistically, there are people here who are perpetrators of violence.’ I felt complicit,” Dunnsue added. “That’s not comfortable to think about, especially in a fraternity where you exist to support one another.”

Nicholas Kinberg, the director of operations for the Men’s Project, told The College Fix said that the project was inactive for six years because students were focused on promoting social justice in other ways on campus. For example, Kinberg claims that many students at Washington University in St. Louis have been focused on “gender studies” activities.

Because of the loss of institutional knowledge, we are unsure of why the Men’s Project was dormant for six years and why it was launched in the first place. If we were to give our best guess, the Men’s Project was probably dormant because students occupied themselves with other activities having to do with gender studies and interpersonal violence. The Men’s Project was probably initially launched for reasons similar to why the Men’s Project was revived in spring 2019.

Breitbart News has written extensively on the topic of “toxic masculinity.” Breitbart News reported in April 2019 that a group of men in Pennsylvania had established a male “cuddling group” to combat “toxic masculinity.”