Join us on Wednesday, May 6th, as the AVA Webinar Series presents What Does Masculinity Have to Do With It: Men, Fathers’ Rights Groups, and the Complexities of Masculinity, featuring Connor MacMillan from Capilano University.
Wednesday, May 6th, 2026
12 – 1:30pm MST
Masculinity is the domain by which violence against women is often rationalized as an act of entitled right to ownership over women’s bodies. While this notion has been upheld through various scholarship, I argue that rising gender based violence is precipitated by an uncertainty of masculine gender norms and expectations. What is labeled is anxious masculinity, is a rise in uncertainty and precarity around gender norms that is often mitigated through compensatory acts of masculinity, such as gender based violence.
About the Speaker
Connor MacMillan is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Capilano University. He has a strong interest in researching and understanding power relations within society. His work centres around the interconnection of race, gender, power and control, inequality, and violence. His current research seeks to understand better how power relations are upheld and maintained within privileged groups in society (e.g., gender and race) and how they are defended against increasing demands for greater equality and equity. Most recently, Connor has published in the Journal of Men and Masculinities on the rise of men’s rights groups as a reaction to the uncertainty (anxious masculinity) of gender norms and expectations within society. His work has since expanded to look at the rise of far-right extremism as a function of the intersection between structures of power, specifically whiteness and masculinity.