This project came about as my final project in my Women’s Studies degree. Projects in this course were varied in method, including family oral history, archival research, audio journaling, interviewing, film making, website creation and of course, formal paper writing. The topics of discussion were equally varied, covering masculinity, women and sexuality, ability in schools, sex education, women in sports and the construction of race— I’m sure I’m forgetting some.

My professor presented this assignment saying, “write the paper that you have always wanted to write but never had the chance,” and there was no question in my mind of what I wanted to say. Over dinner that night I tried to explain how there is such a clear evolution of women’s roles as a direct result of feminism, but that it seemed as though leaving men’s roles out of the picture has resulted in “equality” being ultimately one-sided at best. I knew that the only way to explain this properly was to show this as historical, but I was stumped at how to do this when there is such little examination of masculinity in comparison to the well-documented changes in women’s equality. My ever-so-brilliant boyfriend suggested that I use some form of media to document the historical constructions of both genders, and so this project was born.

Contact me: academicpointillism (a.t) gmail (d.o.t) com