When Skip Bayless, co-host of Fox Sports' "Undisputed" show, criticized Dak Prescott on his comments about struggling with depression through last year, the public backlash was swift, severe and unforgiving. Prior the pandemic, athletes were beginning to open up about the struggles they faced in sports, which is a sharp turn away from the "old school" mentality to just "suck it up."

The history of hypermasculinity in sport doesn't start and stop with the athlete. It's a system perpetuated from the top to the bottom, but in today's arenas, younger generations may be helping to change the landscape and detoxify toxic masculinity in sport through an openness of seeking help for mental health to "non-traditional" styles of fashion pushing the boundaries of the binary.

Joining the Conversation: 

Don McPherson | Former NFL & CFL quarterback and author of You Throw Like a Girl: The Blindspot of Masculinity 

Erica Rand, PhD | Professor of Art and Visual Culture and Gender and Sexuality Studies, Bates College

Chris Kluwe | Former NFL player for the Minnesota Vikings, outspoken advocate for gender equality, and author of Otaku

Paulette Stevenson, PhD | Residential Faculty at Mesa Community College, doctorate in rhetoric, writing and literacies and gender studies certificate, Arizona State University

Stan Thangaraj | Associate professor of Anthropology at The City College of New York examining stereotypes associated with race, gender and sport, author of Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity

Hosted By: 

Luke Brenneman, PhD | Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Global Sport Institute