Toxic Masculinities: The Numbers Tell the Story

The Doc to Dock Mixtape Vol. 1

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in a summer mixtape, starting with a bigger question: why are so many hobbies, including live music, becoming harder and more expensive to access? With Ticketmaster chaos, dynamic pricing, and the growing pressure to perform “being there” online, Brett and Nicole unpack what it means to love concerts, music, and joy in a culture that makes them increasingly exclusive and exhausting. They also build a mixtape for listeners. From concert white whales and festival logistics to favorite albums, songs, and artists, this is a conversation about music in all its forms—what we love, what we skip, and what’s on the forever playlist. [Update as Promised] Yes! We did get Olivia Rodrigo tickets in the general sale!! Nicole’s Notes * Follow Nicole on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/1213769555?si=afc001dd073b42c6 [https://open.spotify.com/user/1213769555?si=afc001dd073b42c6] * “Ya Like Jazz?” Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqDOQzfM5Kc [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqDOQzfM5Kc] Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry.  Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez.  Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

Toxic Masculinities: The Numbers Tell the Story

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation from recent reporting from CNN about a hidden network of abuse that has brought renewed attention to the scale and normalization of gender-based violence. Nicole and Brett move into a broader conversation about the systems that enable harm, from the strategies people are taught to survive violence to the ways toxic masculinities operate not as isolated behaviors, but as systems that are learned, reinforced, and reproduced across culture, media, and digital spaces. They discuss the expectations of masculinity as a moving barometer (one that remains out of reach for most men, intentionally) and how that tension can manifest in anger and violence. The conversation also explores what it means to interrupt structures that continue to produce harm, and what accountability looks like when a problem feels both everywhere and nowhere at once. This is a heavy episode. We discuss violence, sexual assault, and the systems that shape both. Listener discretion is advised. Brett’s Notes * Be A Man: Joe Ehrmann at TEDxBaltimore 2013 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVI1Xutc_Ws] * AI Chatbots: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykvf3MunGf8] * I Want a 24-Hour Truce During Which There is No Rape [https://rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/i-want-a-24hour-truce-during-which-there-is-no-rape/] - Andrea Dworkin * The Man Box  [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nErBhm8LMxRgtcVW8-7ilDZ-Nn52kFRuVYwFVtKPEps/edit?usp=sharing] Nicole’s Notes * CNN investigative report on the hidden abuse network [https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2026/03/world/expose-rape-assault-online-vis-intl/index.html] * Trevor Noah Podcast episode featuring Dulcé Sloan [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKQIrwg5YWM&t=1347s] (Minute 12-20) * we real cool (book) by bell hooks  * The Fall "They Might Kill Us"  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDcn7FGx7rU] Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry.  Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez.  Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

S2 Episode 10. Home Work, An Introduction (with Dr. Madison Borrelli)

This week, Dr. Brett docks the conversation in the concept of home work — the ongoing labor of coming to feel at home in our body minds, relationships, and communities. Brett introduces how home work was first shaped through conversations with survivors of violence and grounded in questions of community, justice, and belonging. Together with Nicole (and special guest Dr. Madison Borrelli!), they explore what it means to create a sense of home when it hasn’t always been given, and how that work shifts across place, time, and relationships. From moving across cities and continents to maintaining connection through voice notes and routines, the episode traces how home is less about where you are and more about what you carry. This is a conversation about familiarity, instability, trauma, and the quiet practices that help us make it through, even when, or if, we never fully “arrive.” Brett’s Notes * Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin  * Space, Place, and Violence: Violence and the Embodied Geographies of Race, Sex, and Gender - James Tyner * The Office - Good Old Days - Andy Bernard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujJQyhB0dws [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujJQyhB0dws]  Nicole’s Notes  * Dr. Brett’s dissertation: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2672267159?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses [https://www.proquest.com/docview/2672267159?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses]   * Practical Magic 2 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSWP2feb4rw [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSWP2feb4rw]  🎓 Special Guest: Dr. Madison Borrelli, Ph.D. Dr. Borrelli is a postdoctoral researcher in planetary geophysics at Georgia Tech. Her research focuses on Venus and icy satellites, with particular attention to surface processes. She studies impact craters and volcanism using remote sensing combined with numerical modeling. Find out more about what Madison is researching here: https://sites.gatech.edu/eas-solid-earth/03-28-2025-dr-madison-borrelli/ [https://sites.gatech.edu/eas-solid-earth/03-28-2025-dr-madison-borrelli/]  Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry.  Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez.  Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

S2 Episode 9. Every Accusation is a Confession

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in the uneasy space where accusation becomes confession. Brett and Nicole start from the latest political flashpoints — from Trump’s AI Jesus post to Pete Hegseth’s accusations abroad — and ask why the people most loudly condemning others are so often describing themselves. From the Trump administration to the state of Israel, they trace how hypocrisy works as a public script, and why naming it rarely seems to be enough. Brett and Nicole also move into religious and cultural logics that shape these patterns, including Nicole’s evangelical upbringing. Along the way, they talk about shame, propaganda, gender, power, and the limits of “gotcha” politics. The episode asks a harder question than whether someone is lying: what does a confession reveal about the culture that made the lie possible? Nicole’s Notes * West Wing Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CPjWd4MUXs [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CPjWd4MUXs]  * Hollow Land by Eyal Weisman  * The Dark Knight (Film) Brett’s Notes * The Dark Knight Rises (Film) Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry.  Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez.  Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

S2 Episode 8. Kill Your Heroes

This week, Brett docks the conversation in the uneasy space between celebrity culture, liberation politics, and the question of what we do when the heroes we admire turn out to be deeply compromised. Brett and Nicole start from the familiar tension of loving the work while wrestling with the artist, then push further into a harder question: if we’re serious about liberation, do we have to kill our heroes? From Timothy Busfield to César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, they think through what happens when public figures tied to justice and movement work are revealed to have caused harm. They ask how to hold accountability without flattening history, why movements often get reduced to figureheads, and what it means to remember collective struggle without deifying the people at the top. CW: sexual violence, child abuse, abuse, accountability. Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry.  Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez.  Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.