Meet Neil Shyminsky, aka "Professor Neil," Professor of English at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. In addition to university teaching, he also runs a TikTok focused on educating others (especially other cishet men) about toxic masculinity, and providing examples of healthy masculinity. Here's a great video where he's practicing trans allyship through normalizing the gender-affirming care that everyone engages in. Here's a post where he provides some examples of healthy masculinity. And here's one where he calls out "alpha males."
And here's my favorite, where he encourages progressive cishet men who think they're "one of the good guys," to be aware that there is always more to learn. In the video, he discusses "overconfidence" and "unconscious incompetence," where beginner's caution is replaced with a false sense of confidence because people aren't aware yet of what they don't know. He goes on:
Part of the journey in becoming a feminist man, a supportive partner, a good ally, is recognizing that that stage never ends. There will always be things that we can't know and we will never know everything that we can't know. Continue to exercise beginner's caution, work from a place of openness, not defensiveness.
Thanks, Professor Neil. This world needs more professors like this, and fewer professors like that.
