Memorial University's Student Editorial(est. 1950)

Men listen to men all the time. Our playlists are full of masculine performers and bands that express emotions and stories from a man’s perspective.

This standardized point of view in songs is more evident in gendered languages in which social gender changes the way in which words are written and rhymes are crafted, creating a repertoire that sticks to the lived experience and utterance of a man.

This is not a gratuitous situation but the result of the patriarchal culture in music. The open dominance of men in worldwide music charts and specialized journalism shows a terrible imbalance in terms of representation: only 7 out of the first 20 greatest artists of all time in a list curated by Billboard are women.

What is worse, in those first 20 places, all performers are from the English-speaking sphere, and a man is named twice: Paul McCartney, as part of The Beatles and as a solo singer. If that happens in mere terms of representation, what does it mean in terms of power dynamics in music?

Men dominate music industry and the social life of music around men is the standard, leaving few spaces for women, gender diverse people and men who does not adhere to conventions on cisgender and heterosexual expectations.

Homosociality is common in men’s social interactions and reinforces validation practices in which the masculine perspective is sought; this means men tend to socialize and listen to men more on a daily basis rather than interacting or listening to women.

Mainly cishet men have men as their heroes and role models inside and outside music, but we rarely include women in those high places of admiration, or we place them in those spaces only if we have a real-life connection with them.

Patriarchal culture serves as a scaffolding to translate that masculine homosociality to the general audience’s taste in music, favouring men and their bands in our ears.

Regarding that panorama, we can transform our listening practices to include women artists on the one hand and musical expressions and genres from all around the world on the other hand to grasp a wider insight into the human diversity in music.

When we decenter men while listening to songs and music, the possibilities of understanding reality, emotions, aesthetics, and lived experiences multiply and thrive.

Other worlds are opened before us and get closer to our understanding through the performance of a woman: Respect by Aretha Franklin could not be understood and felt the same way when sung by a white man, nor could Macorina by Chavela Vargas be comprehended as a defiance to heteronormativity in a highly sexist environment such as Mexican vernacular music in the 20th century.

If we, men, want to go even a step further, we can ask women about what they hear when listening to music, and, if we pay careful attention, we can discover the same song we listen to at the same time has completely different meanings coded by gendered interactions and lived experiences.

Therefore, men urgently need to listen to women in the music context, and that means listening to them as musicians and composers, as an audience, and, broadly, as equals in the social world we share.

Come From Away, the 2017 Broadway Musical, is one of the most fascinating phenomena in terms of its impact on Gander’s cultural identity.

The community of Gander and its surrounding areas impacted by the international passengers who made emergency landings in Gander during 9/11—a communal area I refer to in this article as the Gander-scape—had their stories told on the international stage to glowing reviews.

To many, this show is incredible, and I am inclined to agree; the story itself is very powerful, it brings this powerful story to an international audience, and I, like many other locals, appreciate the show’s broadly positive portrayal of Newfoundlanders and island culture.

Stories like these make me and other locals proud to call ourselves Newfoundlanders.

However, I began noticing some patterns, particularly in Gander, which concerned me: advertisements.

From billboards to merchandising, it feels impossible to escape from the Come From Away advertising. Advertisements in and of themselves are not problematic, though some of Come From Away’s  promotional material seemingly exist only to inadvertently overshadow the Gander-scape’s broader historical identity. 

This is why I believe Come From Away should not be the face of the Gander-scapes cultural identity: The branding of the Gander-scape’s cultural history through the phenomenon of Come From Away obscures the communities broader cultural identity, reshaping how locals and tourists understand community memory, and transforming 9/11 Heritage places into Come From Away places.

The consequences of this phenomenon are prominent through the sudden transformation of personal experience into marketable assets;

Former politician Derm Flynn uses his likeness as a character within Come From Away as a selling-point to exchange the commodity of first-hand experience with money; you can book an appointment to talk with him about 9/11 heritage and Come From Away with an initial payment of 70 dollars.

These lived experiences are shared community memories and are very special to the Gander-scape’s identity, and so I find it deeply uncomfortable to see these sacred pieces of vernacular history become something which can be bought and sold. 

Further consequences of this phenomenon exist within how people imagine the Gander-scape’s cultural identity;

“Come From Away interpretive panels” for instance—tourism advertisements displayed outside of almost every major community centre across Gander—transform the communities schools, public service centres, and museums into tourist attractions.

Children going to Gander Academy, volunteers working at the Fire Rescue building, and tourists going to the North Atlantic Aviation Museum (NAAM) look at the “Come From Away interpretive panels” outside of these buildings and feel a sense of eerie surrealism as Come From Away overshadows the vernacular history associated with these community centres, ultimately altering how we think about cultural identity.

Come From Away has changed the way people learn about local Gander-scape histories.

The NAAM, a museum featuring aviation history dating back to 1935, has its visitors almost exclusively interested in the contents of the 9/11 “Safe Haven” exhibit, which features 9/11 heritage and history alongside Come From Away advertisements and memorabilia. 

Reporting from PNI Atlantic News shows a tourism boom at the NAAM following the Come From Away off-Broadway production, highlighting the overlap between Come From Away and tourist education.

While this boom in tourism is beneficiary to local businesses, and while the “Safe Haven” exhibit is undeniably historically significant, the traffic it receives in relation to the rest of the exhibits the NAAM has to offer highlights how the Come From Away phenomenon has flattened how we engage and learn about Gander’s extensive aviation history.

Come From Away as a Broadway production is nearing 10 years of stardom coming March 2027, and is performing in Gander once again for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 remembrance in September 2026; a major milestone in both world history and the local performing arts.

Come From Away belongs within the community as an artistic achievement, and frankly it deserves that right.

However, it’s within the communities schools, museums, and public service centres—places with historically important roles in relation to the community’s 9/11 heritage—that Come From Away’s promotional-saturation becomes more problematic.

Artistic commemoration is not equivalent to historical interpretation within these contexts.

So in conclusion, with regard to Come From Away’s impact on the Gander-scapes cultural geography, and acknowledging that the identity of the communities heritage is transforming into a more marketable narrative, the question must be asked: at what point does remembrance become branding? 

I hope that, moving forward, the Gander-scape will begin to reclaim its original and historical cultural identity; an identity based within vernacular history and people’s personal experiences rather than marketing and presentation.

The Gander-scape is first and foremost a 9/11 heritage community, and the face of its cultural identity should reflect those histories directly.

Gender bias and gender violence are not new phenomena. The problem of patriarchal dynamics around the world is broadly studied from diverse perspectives, still presenting a gloomy panorama.

I come from Mexico, a country with heavy issues regarding machismo, a specific sociocultural kind of sexism, and misogyny.

According to the most recent Gender Social Norms Index, 9 out of 10 men in Mexico hold at least one gender bias—in the political, educational, economic, and/or physical integrity dimensions—against women.

In Canada, the picture is also negative because almost 1 out of 2 men also has at least one fundamental bias rooted in a patriarchal society. At the centre of this scenario, there is an online component that has primarily reinforced violence against women through varied means.

Social media is not a neutral terrain for digital life, and neither are Internet forums.

In most cases, Internet users, multimedia content creators, blogs, and posts are failing to apply minimum ethical conduct to avoid hate speech and dehumanizing diverse groups of people. This situation creates a context in which platforms, institutions, and governments deny or neglect their accountability for the harmful content they allow to circulate for the sake of profits and online audience engagement.

In the past two decades, patriarchy has heavily extended its reach over social media and the internet in general, scaffolding the basis for the creation of a digital environment of misogyny and anti-feminist discourses worldwide: the Manosphere.

In a world where, according to a recent survey, gen Z men have a dangerous view of gender equality, it is time to acknowledge the enormous harm the Manosphere has dealt to men’s populations.

This cluster of online communities is mainly supported and promoted by men to spread disinformation and hatred according to the biased expectations of their specific group.

For instance, incels adopted the idea that girls and women are withholding the access to sex-affective relationships even when they are not really listening to any woman to know what they want in a partner nor treating women and girls with human dignity and respect.

Redpillers sell young men the ideology of being “awakened” to societal gender norms, but in reality, they merely reinforce traditional gender roles and reproduce the ideals of a patriarchal structure in society from 20th-century imagery and earlier.

Men’s rights activists promote a distorted view of reality, claiming that men are “legally disfavored” in all aspects of their lives solely because they are men, while failing to acknowledge that many of the issues they raise are actually the result of interconnected systems of oppression, such as capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy.

Pickup artists teach young men ‘seduction techniques’ based on manipulation, psychological violence, coercion, or deceit, lacking any ethical view on interpersonal relationships, mutual well-being, eradication of gender violence and gender biases, or consent processes.

The manosphere is dangerous and harmful for everyone, but especially for women and girls who are targeted with several forms of violence, including technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV).

This digital ecosystem has developed violent communities that even create and circulate methodologies for sexual aggressions, including rape.

Men are the main active participants and content consumers in the Manosphere, literally constituting its target audience in terms of content and actual market regarding revenue. Therefore, what are we, men, waiting for to dismantle the Manosphere?

How much more damage will we allow to happen to everyone (including ourselves) until we recognize that the need to change is huge and inescapable for the sake of the well-being of all societies?

The Manosphere is just a digital consequence of patriarchy, and it can be dismantled if we take action as a community.

‘Loitering,’ reframed as an intentional presence in public space, positively contributes to communities, and should be encouraged.

What is loitering?

Loitering (verb): To delay an activity with idle stops and pauses; to remain in an area for no obvious reason; to lag behind (from Merriam-Webster); to linger, hang about… to stand, sit, or recline without a purpose (from various municipal codes).

I’m not sure about you, but the above sounds like a dream. I yearn for delaying an activity with idle stops or pauses; to stand, sit, or recline without a purpose.

Why must a purpose be required? Sometimes, as a small act of resistance, I lag behind. What a joy it is to know you will be a few minutes late, and stretch time just slightly beyond what is expected.

And yet, my reasons for loving loitering go beyond this whimsy. They rest on something more structural, something closer to community health.

This positive light I shine on loitering might be surprising, given its negative connotation.

‘To loiter’ is often synonymous with suspicion; it is, in many places, explicitly criminalized. Take Cambridge Dictionary‘s definition: To wait in a place “looking as if you are going to do something illegal.”

The justification for this criminality begins to unravel under scrutiny. How does loitering differ from simply ‘hanging out’?

At what point does presence become an offence? Is spending time in a place only acceptable if it is purposeful, or perhaps transactional, if we have paid to be there?

This definition should give us pause: loitering is framed as waiting while appearing as if one might do something illegal. A look, then, becomes the offence.

This subjectivity is not incidental; it is foundational. Historically, loitering laws have regulated not behaviours, but people. Emerging from 14th-century vagrancy laws, they were designed to control those deemed ‘out of place.’

Poor, homeless, racialized, and Queer communities have long been surveilled simply for existing in public.

In this way, loitering is unique in the criminal sense. It is not what one does, but who one is, and where one stands, that comes under scrutiny; an unease that still lingers in how we police presence in public space today.

Why loitering is good

While I believe traipsing, idling, and moving about without intention is a lovely way to spend a day, my reasons for promoting loitering extend beyond lightheartedness.

Encouraging people to spend time in their communities builds connection in ways that are both subtle and profound. As with active transportation, loitering increases incidental interactions – the small, fleeting encounters that accumulate into familiarity, and then into trust, belonging, and shared space.

Importantly, these interactions are cost-free and accessible. You are not required to purchase anything to remain in a public space, nor is an exclusive membership required.

In this sense, loitering reasserts the role of the public sphere as a democratic meeting place. First described by Jürgen Habermas, the public sphere is one in which individuals gather not as consumers, but as participants in shared life.

It stands in contrast to the private sphere’s controlled domain. One of the beautiful things about community is precisely this diverse matrix of lives that come together, sometimes unexpectedly.

There are also concrete health benefits to loitering, both physical and mental. Time spent outdoors supports vitamin D synthesis and has been associated with lower cortisol levels.

Lingering in communal spaces also promotes physical activity in an incidental, low-barrier way; a short walk becomes slightly longer and a destination becomes a place to pause.

Ironically, loitering is often framed as a precursor to crime, frequently reported as “suspicious behaviour.” And yet, the opposite may be true.

Urbanist Jane Jacobs described “eyes on the street,” the idea that the presence of ordinary people creates a form of natural surveillance. When people are around, hanging out, idling, simply existing, there are fewer opportunities for crime to occur unnoticed.

A lively street feels safe not because it is controlled, but because it is inhabited. By contrast, empty spaces such as vacant lots or deserted parking areas often feel unsafe precisely because they lack this social presence.

There is a simpler explanation: Having people around makes life more enjoyable.

There is a quiet joy in stepping outside and seeing others doing the same. Sitting, chatting, passing through, or, indeed, doing nothing in particular.

It is a shared, unspoken, and deeply human experience. 

Encouraging loitering in our communities 

If we accept that loitering has value, the next question becomes: How do we encourage it?

A useful starting point comes from anthropologist Marc Augé, who distinguishes between  “places” and “non-places”. Non-places are those we move through without attachment, such as transit hubs, corridors, or parking lots.

They are functional, but not meaningful. The challenge is to transform public spaces, including sidewalks, parks, street corners, into places worth staying in.

This begins with the physical environment. Interventions can be modest or ambitious. A single bench can invite pause; larger investments, such as community centres, expand these possibilities. What matters is not scale, but intention: Creating spaces that signal permission to remain.

Equally important is the presence of activities. Chess tables, hopscotch markings, little free libraries, community gardens, or seasonal events provide gentle invitations to linger.

Safety is another crucial component. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design emphasizes visibility, lighting, maintenance, and activity support. A well-lit, well-used space is both safer and more inviting.

Finally, comfort matters: Seating , shade, washrooms, water, and thoughtful, human-scale aesthetics all contribute to spaces people want to spend time in.