This evening on The Voice after the Battle round performance of Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer by Johnny Rez vs. Nolan Neal, Coach Adam Levine used Twitter to release the following sexist comment:
Of course, the diction and violence of this comment are very problematic. To my surprise, no one else seem bothered by this on Twitter. As a result, I tweeted the following four comments to Levine. (WordPress shows the tweets in a slightly weird way. To see a simple few click here.)
Levine’s post addresses the kind of issues we look at all the time in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies courses. What does it mean to be a “man”? And how do notions of being a “man” hurt both men and women and people who do not identiy as either? Why are most so blind to patriarchy?
And in the case of The Voice, why not just recognize solid performances? Levine could have easily said “Only true artists…” or “Only dedicated people…” or “Only the best…” or “Only the kindest…” or “Only the most caring…” or ……
Bringing masculinity into the equation actually takes away from their talent and is a form of violence.
Words and ideologies matter.
Andrew Joseph Pegoda
Dr. Andrew Joseph Pegoda 
