Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs Volume 2 Issue 1 Article 2 September 2015 "I'm Man Enough; Are You?": The Queer (Im)possibilities of Walk A Mile In Her Shoes Z Nicolazzo Northern Illinois University Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/jcshesa Part of the Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Higher Education Commons, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons Recommended Citation Nicolazzo, Z (2015) ""I'm Man Enough; Are You?": The Queer (Im)possibilities of Walk A Mile In Her Shoes," Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/jcshesa/vol2/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JCSHESA Volume 2, Issue 1 “I’m Man Enough; Are You?”: The Queer (Im)possibilities of Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Z Nicolazzo, Northern Illinois University Abstract Walk a Mile in Her Shoes is a staple national program that engages college males in sexual violence prevention on many college campuses. In this manuscript, I use queer theory and crip theory—a conceptual framework that merges queer and critical disability theory—to explore both the positive outcomes and potential harm done in the production and imple- mentation of this event. I conclude the manuscript with considerations for educators seek- ing to engage college students in critical praxis around ending sexual violence on campus. These possibilities are rooted in Cohen’s (1998) notion of reorienting future praxis around the very nonnormative and marginalized people whose lives are centered through queer and crip theory. Thus, I provide queered and cripped possibilities for how educators can reimagine Walk a Mile in Her Shoes as a sexual violence intervention. Keywords sexual violence prevention, queer theory, crip theory, gender ISSN 2377-1305 © 2015 All rights reserved. Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs is an open access journal and all pages are available for copying and distribution under a Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial/No Derivative works license. Any authorized work must be properly attributed to the author(s). Work cannot be used for commercial means or changed in any way. NICOLAZZO ften labeled a “women’s issue,” males education, prevention and remediation have increasingly begun to recognize programs. (“Home,” n.d.) Otheir roles and become active in sexual These are certainly laudatory accomplish- violence prevention (Atherton-Zeman, 2013; ments. However, I assert that WMHS events Schafer, 2013). As early as 1984, the Black may perpetuate harm toward nonnormative feminist scholar bell hooks (1984/2000) bodies and identities, specifically trans* asserted: students and students with disabilities. After hundreds of years of anti-racist struggle, more than ever before non- There is a distinct lack of scholarly liter- white people are currently calling atten- ature on WMHS, particularly regarding tion to the primary role white people its inclusion as a programmatic interven- must play in anti-racist struggle. The tion to address sexual violence on college same is true of the struggle to eradicate campuses. Therefore, this scholarly essay sexism—[males] have a primary role to attempts to address this gap by analyzing the play. (p. 83) purpose, intent, and enactment of WMHS Answering this call to action, male social through two queer theoretical frameworks activists such as Paul Kivel (1992), Jackson to explore both the positive outcomes and Katz (2006) and Byron Hurt (Hurt, Nelson, tensions inherent in the production and & Gordon, 2006) have worked to engage implementation of this event. These tensions other males in sexual violence prevention. underscore the impossibilities of the event to Similarly, the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes deconstruct hegemonic—and harmful—un- (WMHS) program is a national program derstandings of the dynamics between those designed primarily to encourage males to “being supported” (e.g., White, temporarily fundraise for and build awareness of sexual able-bodied females) and those “doing the assault and domestic violence prevention. supporting” (e.g., males seeking to reify their masculinity through their participation in WMHS began in 2001. The central web- the event), which are dynamics I address site for WMHS describes these events as throughout the manuscript. “political performance art with public, personal, and existential messages” (“Home,” First, I discuss the continued conflation n.d.). These events, which began as com- between sex and gender through language, munity-based awareness and fundraising highlighting how I will use this language interventions, have become a staple program throughout the manuscript. Next, I discuss in addressing sexual violence prevention on my own positionality as a scholar, connect- many college campuses. Moreover, WMHS ing how I experience various salient social events seem to have achieved much of their identities to the present inquiry regarding purported mission to raise awareness and WMHS. I then briefly discuss the two fundraise for local sexual violence preven- theoretical frameworks through which I tion agencies. As evidence of these accom- analyze WMHS, namely queer theoretical plishments, the WMHS website states: literature focused on trans* identities (e.g., What started out as a small group of Butler, 2006; Namaste, 2006) and crip theory [males] daring to totter around a park (McRuer, 2006), a critical/queer theory has grown to become a world-wide aiming to critique the ways in which society movement with tens of thousands of ostracizes people with disabilities and, thus, [males] raising millions of dollars for lo- resists normative notions of their being cal rape crisis centers, domestic violence “abnormal,” “broken,” or “tragic.” After an shelters and other sexualized violence analysis of WMHS marketing materials and 19 THE QUEER (IM)POSSIBILITIES OF WALK A MILE IN HER SHOES events through these theoretical frameworks, individuals) and gender presentations (e.g., I conclude the manuscript with consider- trans* people) are culturally unintelligible ations for educators seeking to engage col- (Detloff, 2012); or, put another way, the lege students in critical praxis around ending notion that any sex/gender combination that sexual violence on campus. does not fall along normative and dichoto- mous lines (e.g., male/masculine and female/ A Quick Note on feminine) is culturally incomprehensible. (Sexed/Gendered) Language Therefore, one is able to see that although sex and gender are discrete categories of identity, Before embarking upon my queer critique of they also have a relationship whereby their WMHS, I highlight a vast oversight in the di- cultural (dis)continuity influences everyone. alogue on engaging males in sexual violence Due to this, the concepts of sex and gen- prevention. In the quotations in the previous der—and the links between the two—form section, I replaced the word “male” where an entangled relationship in which one the word “men” had been. My rationale for cannot replace or consume the other. In this this substitution is to acknowledge that sex sense, biology—evoked in conversations and gender—terms often conflated through- about sex—serves as a site of contestation, out literature and the public sphere (Renn, complexity, and diversity much in the same 2010)—are distinct categories through which way as theoretical discussions about gender one can understand personal identity. In this have done (Wilson, 2010). case, the term male signifies one’s sex, a des- ignation that is assigned at birth, whereas the Culturally unintelligible gender presen- terms “man” and “men” refer to one’s gender tations are those forms of expression that identity, and the term “masculine” refers to transgress “normative sex/gender relations” one’s gender expression, or the embodiment (Namaste, 2006, p. 585), or when one’s of a particular gender identity. gender expression does not mirror cultural assumptions of “normalcy” based on the Although many presume sex to be biological sex one is assigned at birth. The conflation and/or immutable, several scholars have of sex and gender terminology furthers the persuasively argued otherwise. As Faus- cultural unintelligibility of trans* people to-Sterling (1985) stated, “Sex…is no simple by rendering their gender identities and matter” (p. 88). She went on to detail the expressions invisible, impossible, and unreal. complexities of sex, gender, and the vari- Furthermore, this conflation lacks specificity, ability between and among these categories as the category of men, a marker of gender, is of identity, and suggested that the male/ much larger than that of males. Discussions female and masculine/feminine binaries are of men by definition include trans* men far from adequate to explain the diversity of (e.g., Green, 2004) and females who identify people’s bodies, experiences, and presenta- as masculine (e.g., Halberstam, 1998; Pascoe, tions. Additionally, Butler (2006) coined the 2007). This is not the group of people hooks term “gender performativity,” or the idea that (1984/2000), Kivel (1992), Katz (2006), Hurt how individuals express their gender in re- (Hurt et al., 2006), or