Who Gets To Be A Criminal?

Toxic masculinity, angry, proud boys, and the whiteness of true crime.

Art: Olga Perelman

A few weeks ago I found out one of my high school teachers was arrested for sexual assault. I’ve been thinking about him more than I’d like to admit: about the ways in which he employed shame and favouritism to command his power; casualness and humour to dissolve boundaries and the defined roles of teacher and student. I wish I gave more thought to the victims, but the truth is, I’m fascinated (or maybe just intimidated) by powerful men. Most of my life has been spent in all-female households, my mentors as a girl were Buffy and Sailor Moon. Men are kind of a foreign species to me. Particularly powerful men. When they get angry, and especially when they do wrong and get away with it, I need to understand why.

I figure reading up on toxic masculinity would be a good place to start. The term—used to describe the harmful norms of hegemonic masculinity such as dominance and emotional suppression—is relatively recent, it came out…