Alex is a British artist and writer. He studied fine art and history of art at Goldsmiths College, London. His art has been exhibited worldwide and is in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), National Museum (Cardiff), Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool) and other museums. His art criticism has been published in The Burlington Magazine, The Art Newspaper, Sculpture Journal, The Jackdaw, The British Art Journal, Apollo, Printmaking Today, Print Quarterly and other outlets. His poetry has been published in anthologies, broadsides and single-author volumes in the UK and USA. His new book Iconoclasm, Identity Politics and the Erasure of History is published by Societas on 6 October.<br /><br />[For a fuller profile, check out the speakers page <a href="https://icmi2020.icmi.info/?page_id=27." target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://icmi2020.icmi.info/?page_id=27.</a>]<br /><br />This video is one of 120 videos published for the sixth International Conference on Men's Issues (2020) <a href="http://icmi2020.icmi.info" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://icmi2020.icmi.info</a>, a conference originally planned for Sydney, Australia, but later turned into a virtual conference due to Covid-19.<br /><br />From #metoo to the American Psychological Association’s guidelines pathologizing “masculinity” as harmful, to Gillette’s razor adverts blaming all men for the actions of a damaged few, ideologically motivated groups have used unchallenged narratives of female victimhood to promote damaging stereotypes about men and boys, masculinity and men’s relationships to each other.<br /><br />More than ever before, recognition of men’s issues is needed. Men and boys deserve compassion, they deserve consideration for their unique needs, and they deserve our support.<br /><br />Men and boys also deserve respect for their unique contributions to society and an end to the promotion of unkind stereotyping of being harmful, abusive, toxic, selfish and hateful. We would not tolerate this stereotyping directed towards any other group.<br /><br />We are in an era of unprecedented ideological conflict. By reducing men’s ability to take a positive identity from their masculinity we are encouraging young men to pursue ever more radical ideologies to find a place to belong. In turn we are also encouraging young women to embrace an identity as society’s victims rather than its equal co-creators.<br /><br />The inaugural conference was held in 2014, and since 2016 the conference has been held annually: <br /><br />- Detroit (2014)<br />- London (2016)<br />- Gold Coast, Australia (2017)<br />- London (2018)<br />- Chicago (2019)<br /><br />Playlists of all 100+ presentations at the conferences (as well as the 120 at this one) are here, along with playlists of the presentations at the Messages 4 Men conferences in London (2017-19) and the (UK) National Conference on Men's Issues, “Domestic Abuse is a Men’s Issue, Too” (2020):<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhX1c3ow6BrzdzP3ydpeZQ/playlists" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhX1c3ow6BrzdzP3ydpeZQ/playlists</a><br /><br />The conferences <br />...<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5arV4mCFEVU" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5arV4mCFEVU</a>